16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian 

THE WINE-DARK SEA 

Aubrey-Maturin series, book 16

T H E S A I L S O F A S Q U A R E 

R I G G E D S H I P 

1 – flying jib 2 – jib 3 – fore topmast staysail 4 – fore staysail 5 – 

foresail or course 6 – fore topsail 7 – fore topgallant 8 – 

mainstaysail 9-maintopmast staysail 10 – middle staysail 11 – 

main topgallant staysail 12 – mainsail or course 13 – maintopsail 

14 – main topgallant 15 – mizzen staysail 16 – mizzen topmast 

staysail 17 – mizzen topgallant staysail 18 – mizzen sail 19 – 

spanker 20 – mizzen topsail 21 – mizzen topgallant 

Royals should appear above sails 7, 14 and 21. Skysails tower 

above royals. Studdingsails should appear at both sides of sails 5, 

6, 12 and 13 and Royals

Points of sailing 

The arrow 

pointing down at 

the top of the 

illustration shows 

the direction of 

the wind. The 

ship m is sailing 

before the wind, 

or with the wind 

right aft; n and I 

have the wind 

one point on the 

quarter; o and k 

have the wind two 

points on the quarter; p and i have the wind three points on the 

quarter; q and h have the wind on the quarter, or six points large; 

f and s have the wind four points large, or two points abaft the 

beam; g and r have the wind five points large; e and t have the 

wind one point abaft the beam, or three points large; u and d 

have the wind on the beam, or two points large; c and x have the 

wind one point large; B and y are sailing close-hauled. The vessels 

shown on the right-hand side of the diagram are on the larboard 

tack, while those on the left-hand side are on the starboard 

tack. Those in the range from s to n and I to f are 'quartering'. 

Those in the range from u to s and d to f are 'sailing large', or 'going 

free'. The area at the top of the diagram into which a ship 

cannot sail is 'dead.' (Illustration from Burney's Dictionary)

Patrick O'Brian 

THE WINE-DARK SEA 

Aubrey-Maturin series, book 16 

1993

For Richard Simon 

and Vivien Green

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea 

ONE 

A purple ocean, vast under the sky and devoid 

of all visible life apart from two minute 

ships racing across its immensity. They were as 

close-hauled to the somewhat irregular northeast 

trades as ever they could be, with every 

sail they could safely carry and even more, 

their bowlines twanging taut: they had been 

running like this day after day, sometimes so 

far apart that each saw only the other's topsails 

above the horizon, sometimes within 

gunshot; and when this was the case they fired 

at one another with their chasers. 

The foremost ship was the Franklin, an 

American privateer of twenty-two guns, ninepounders, 

and her pursuer was the Surprise, a


twenty-eight-gun frigate formerly belonging to 

the Royal Navy but now acting as a privateer 

too, manned by privateersmen and volunteers: 

she was nominally commanded by a half-pay 

officer named Thomas Pullings but in fact by 

her former captain, Jack Aubrey, a man much 

higher on the post-captain's list than would 

ordinarily have been found in so small and 

antiquated a ship – an anomalous craft entirely, 

for although she purported to be a privateer 

her official though unpublished status 

was that of His Majesty's Hired Vessel Surprise. 

She had set out on her voyage with the purpose 

of carrying her surgeon, Stephen 

Maturin, to South America, there to enter into 

contact with those leading inhabitants who 

wished to make Chile and Peru independent 

of Spain: for Maturin, as well as being a doctor 

of medicine, was an intelligence-agent exceptionally 

well qualified for this task, being a


Catalan on his mother's side and bitterly opposed 

to Spanish – that is to say Castilian – 

oppression of his country. 

He was indeed opposed to oppression in all 

its forms, and in his youth he had supported 

the United Irishmen (his father was a Catholic 

Irish officer in the Spanish service) in everything 

but the violence of 1798: but above all, 

far above all, he abhorred that of Buonaparte, 

and he was perfectly willing to offer his services 

to the British government to help put an 

end to it, to offer them gratis pro Deo, thus 

doing away with any hint of the odious name 

of spy, a vile wretch hired by the Ministry to inform 

upon his friends, a name associated in 

his Irish childhood with that of Judas, Spy- 

Wednesday coming just before the Passion. 

His present undertaking, resumed after a 

long interruption caused by the traitorous 

passing of information from London to Ma-


drid, gave him the greatest satisfaction, for its 

success would not only weaken the two oppressors 

but it would also cause extreme anger 

and frustration in a particular department 

of French intelligence that was trying to bring 

about the same result, though with the difference 

that the independent South American 

governments should feel loving and strategically 

valuable gratitude towards Paris rather 

than London. 

He had had many causes for satisfaction 

since they left the Polynesian island of Moahu 

in pursuit of the Franklin. One was that the 

American had chosen to rely on her remarkable 

powers of sailing very close to the wind 

on a course that was leading them directly towards 

his destination; another was that although 

her sailing-master, an old Pacific hand 

from Nantucket, handled her with uncommon 

skill, doing everything in his power to run clear


or shake off his pursuer by night, neither his 

guile nor his seamanship could outmatch Aubrey's. 

If the Franklin slipped a raft over the 

side in the darkness, lighting lanterns upon it, 

dowsing her own and changing course, she 

found the Surprise in her wake when the day 

broke clear; for Jack Aubrey had the same instinct, 

the same sense of timing and a far 

greater experience of war. 

Still another cause for satisfaction was that 

every successive noonday observation showed 

them slanting rapidly down towards the equator 

and some two hundred miles or more 

closer to Peru, a country that Dr Maturin associated 

not only with potential independence 

but also with the coca plant, a shrub whose 

dried leaves he, like the Peruvians, was accustomed 

to chew as a relief from mental or spiritual 

distress and physical or intellectual weariness 

as well as a source of benignity and gen-


eral well-being. Rats, however, had eaten his 

store of leaves somewhere south of Capricorn. 

Coca leaves could not be replaced in New 

South Wales, where the Surprise had spent 

some dismal weeks, and he looked forward 

eagerly to a fresh supply: ever since he last 

heard from his wife – letters had caught up 

with the ship off Norfolk Island – he had felt a 

deep indwelling anxiety about her; and the 

coca leaves might at least dispel the irrational 

part of it. They sharpened the mind wonderfully; 

and he welcomed the prospect of that 

familiar taste, the deadening of the inside of 

his mouth and pharynx, and the calming of his 

spirit in what he termed 'a virtuous ataraxy', a 

freedom that owed nothing to alcohol, that 

contemptible refuge, nor even to his old love 

opium, which might be objected to on physical 

and even perhaps on moral grounds. 

This was scarcely a subject that so discreet,


private and indeed secretive a person as 

Stephen Maturin was likely to discuss, and although 

it flashed into his mind as a piece of 

green seaweed rose momentarily on the bowwave, 

all he said to his companion was 'It is a 

great satisfaction to see the ocean a colour so 

near to that of new wine – of certain kinds of 

new wine – as it comes gushing from the 

press.' 

He and Nathaniel Martin, his assistantsurgeon, 

were standing in the frigate's beakhead, 

a roughly triangular place in front of 

and below the forecastle, the very foremost 

part of the ship where the bowsprit reached 

out, where the seamen's privy was to be 

found, and where the medicoes were least in 

the way, not only of the hands trimming the 

sails to capture the greatest possible thrust 

from the wind but, and above all, of the gunners 

serving the two bow-chasers on the fore-


castle, guns that pointed almost directly forward. 

The gun-crews in question were commanded 

by Captain Aubrey himself, who 

pointed and fired the windward chaser, a long 

brass nine-pounder called Beelzebub, and by 

Captain Pullings, who did the same for the 

leeward gun: they both had much the same 

style of firing, which was not surprising, since 

Captain Pullings had been one of Jack's midshipmen 

in his first command, a great while 

ago in the Mediterranean, and had learnt all 

his practical gunnery from him. They were now 

very carefully aiming their pieces at the Franklin's 

topsail yards with the intent of cutting halyards, 

backstays and the whole nexus of cordage 

at the level of the mainyard and even with 

luck of wounding the mainyard itself: in any 

case of delaying her progress without damage 

to her hull. There was no point in battering the 

hull of a prize, and a prize the Franklin


seemed fated to be in the long run – perhaps 

even today, since the Surprise was perceptibly 

gaining. The range was now a thousand yards 

or even a little less, and both Jack and Pullings 

waited for just before the height of the roll 

to send their shot racing over the broad stretch 

of water. 

'The Captain does not like it, however,' observed 

Maturin, referring to the wine-dark sea. 

'He says it is not natural. He admits the colour, 

which we have all seen in the Mediterranean 

on occasion; he admits the swell, which 

though unusually broad is not rare but the 

colour and the swell together...' 

The crash and rumble of the Captain's gun, 

followed with scarcely a pause by Pullings', cut 

him short: smoke and smouldering scraps of 

wad whistled about their heads, yet even before 

they swept away to leeward Stephen had 

his spyglass to his eye. He could not catch the


flight of the ball, but in three heartbeats he 

saw a hole appear low in the Frenchman's 

topsail, joining a score of others. To his astonishment 

he also saw a jet of water shoot from 

her lee scuppers, and above him he heard 

Tom Pullings' cry. 'They are starting their water, 

sir!' 

'What does this signify?' asked Martin quietly. 

He had not applied to a very valuable source, 

Dr Maturin being strictly a land-animal, but in 

this case Stephen could truthfully reply 'that 

they were pumping their fresh water over the 

side to lighten the ship and make it go faster'. 

'Perhaps,' he added, 'they may also throw their 

guns and boats overboard. I have seen it 

done.' 

A savage cheer from all the Surprises in the 

fore part of the ship showed him that he was 

seeing it again; and having watched the first 

few splashes he passed Martin the glass.


The boats went overboard, and the guns: but 

not quite all the guns. As the Franklin's speed 

increased, her two stern-chasers fired together, 

the white smoke streaming away 

across her wake. 

'How disagreeable it is to be fired at,' said 

Martin, shrinking into as small a space as possible; 

and as he spoke one ball hit the best 

bower anchor close behind them with an 

enormous clang: the sharp fragments, together 

with the second ball, cut away almost 

all the foretopgallantmast's support. The mast 

and its attendant canvas fell quite slowly, 

spars breaking right and left, and the Surprise's 

bow-chasers just had time to reply, both 

shots striking the Franklin's stern. But before either 

Jack's or Pullings' crew could reload their 

guns they were enveloped in sailcloth, whilst at 

the same time all hands aft raised the cry Man 

overboard and the ship flew up into the wind,


all her sails taken aback and clattering like a 

madhouse. The Franklin fired a single gun: an 

extraordinary cloud of smoke, and extraordinary 

report. But it was drowned by Captain 

Aubrey's roar of 'Clew up, clew up, there,' and 

emerging from the canvas 'Where away?' 

'Larboard quarter, sir,' cried several hands. 

'It's Mr Reade.' 

'Carry on, Captain Pullings,' said Jack, whipping 

off his shirt and diving straight into the 

sea. He was a powerful swimmer, the only one 

in the ship, and from time to time he heaved 

himself high out of the water like a seal to 

make sure of his direction. Mr Reade, a midshipman 

of fourteen, had never been able to 

do much more than keep afloat, and since 

losing an arm in a recent battle he had not 

bathed at all. Fortunately the remaining arm 

was firmly hooked into the bars of a hen-coop 

that had been thrown to him from the quarter-


deck, and though sodden and bruised he was 

perfectly in possession of his wits. 'Oh sir,' he 

cried from twenty yards, 'Oh sir, I am so sorry 

– oh how I hope we han't missed the chase.' 

'Are you hurt?' asked Jack. 

'Not at all, sir: but I am so sorry you should 

have...' 

'Then clap on to my hair' – the Captain wore 

it long and clubbed, 'and so get set on my 

shoulders. D'ye hear me there?' 

From time to time on the way back to the 

ship Reade apologized into Jack's ear, or 

hoped they had not lost the chase; but he was 

often choked with salt water, for Jack was now 

swimming against the wind and the set of the 

sea, and he plunged deep at every stroke. 

Reade was less coldly received aboard than 

might have been expected: in the first place he 

was much esteemed by all hands, and in the


second it was clear to any seaman that his being 

rescued had not in fact delayed the pursuit 

of the prize: whether Reade had gone overboard 

or not, the shattered crosstrees had to 

be replaced and new spars, sails and cordage 

had to be sent aloft before the frigate could 

resume her course. Those few hands who 

were not extremely busy with the tangle forward 

passed him the bight of a rope, hauled 

him aboard, asked him with real kindness how 

he did, and handed him over to Sarah and 

Emily Sweeting, two little black, black girls 

from a remote Melanesian island, belonging 

to Dr Maturin and attached to the sick-berth, 

to be led below and given dry clothes and a 

cup of tea. And as he went even Awkward Davies, 

who had been rescued twice and who often 

resented sharing the distinction, called out 

'It was me as tossed you the hen-coop, sir. I 

heaved it overboard, ha, ha, ha!'


As for the Captain, he was already in conference 

with Mr Bulkeley the bosun, and the only 

congratulations he received were from Pullings, 

who said, 'Well, and so you've done it 

again, sir,' before going on to the foretopmost 

cheekblocks. Jack looked for no more, indeed 

not for as much: he had pulled so many people 

out of the water in the course of his time at 

sea that he thought little of it, while those who, 

like Bonden his coxswain, Killick his steward 

and several others, had served with him ever 

since his first command, had seen him do it so 

often that it seemed natural – some Goddamned 

lubber fell in: the skipper fished him 

out – while the privateersmen and smugglers 

who made up most of the rest of the crew had 

acquired much of their shipmates' phlegm. 

In any case they were all much too preoccupied 

with getting the barky into chasing trim 

again to indulge in abstract considerations;


and to objective spectators like Maturin and 

his assistant it was a pleasure to see the intense, 

accurately-directed and almost silent 

energy with which they worked, a highly skilled 

crew of seamen who knew exactly what to do 

and who were doing it with whole-hearted 

zeal. The medicoes, having crawled from under 

the foretopmast staysail, had gone below 

to find Reade perfectly well, being fed with 

sick-berth biscuit by the little girls; and now 

they were watching the strenuous activity from 

the quarterdeck, where the ordinary life of the 

ship was going on in a sparse sort of way: 

West, the officer of the watch, was at his station, 

telescope under his arm; helmsmen and 

quartermaster by the wheel. 

'Turn the glass and strike the bell,' cried the 

quartermaster in a loud official voice. 

There was no one there of course to obey the 

order so he turned the glass himself and


paced forward towards the belfry to strike the 

bell. But both gangways were obstructed with 

spars, cordage and a crowd of straining bodies, 

and he had to go down into the waist and 

pick his way among the carpenter and his 

crew as they worked sweating under the sun, 

now half-way to its height and terrible in the 

copper-coloured sky. They were shaping not 

only the new crosstrees but also the heel of the 

new topgallantmast, an intent body of men, 

working to very fine limits in a rolling ship, plying 

sharp-edged tools and impatient of the 

slightest interruption. But the quartermaster 

was a dogged soul; he had served with Nelson 

in the Agamemnon and the Vanguard; he 

was not going to be stopped by a parcel of 

carpenters; and presently four bells rang out 

their double chime. The quartermaster returned, 

followed by oaths and bringing with 

him the two helmsmen who were to take their


trick at the wheel. 

'Mr West,' said Stephen, 'do you suppose we 

shall eat our dinner today?' 

Mr West's expression was difficult to read; the 

loss of his nose, frost-bitten south of the Horn, 

gave what had been a mild, good-humoured, 

rather stupid face an appearance of malignity; 

and this was strengthened by a number of 

sombre reflexions, more recently acquired. 

'Oh yes,' he said absently. 'Unless we are in 

close action we always shoot the sun and pipe 

to dinner at noon.' 

'No, no. I mean our ceremony in the gunroom.' 

'Oh, of course,' said West. 'What with Reade 

going overboard and the chase stopping us 

dead and tearing away like smoke and oakum 

just as we were overhauling her, it slipped my 

mind. Masthead, there,' he hailed. 'What do


you see?' 

'Precious little, sir,' the voice came floating 

down. 'It is cruel hazy – orange sorts of haze – 

in the south-east; but sometimes I catch what 

might be a twinkle of topgallants.' 

West shook his head, but went on, 'No, no, 

Doctor; never you fret about our dinner. Cook 

and steward laid it on handsome, and though 

we may be a little late I am sure we shall eat it 

– there, do you see, the crosstrees go aloft. 

They will be swaying up the mast directly.' 

'Will they indeed? Order out of chaos so 

soon?' 

'Certainly they will. Never you fret about your 

dinner.' 

'I will not,' said Stephen, who accepted what 

seamen told him about ships with the same 

simplicity as that with which they accepted 

what he told them about their bodies. 'Take


this bolus,' he would say. 'It will rectify the humours 

amazingly,' and they, holding their 

noses (for he often used asafoetida) would 

force the rounded mass down, gasp, and feel 

better at once. With his mind at ease, therefore, 

Stephen said to Martin 'Let us make our 

forenoon rounds,' and went below. 

West, left to his solitude, returned to his own 

fretting – an inadquate word for his concern 

for the future and his anxiety about the present. 

Captain Aubrey had begun this muchinterrupted 

voyage with his old shipmate Tom 

Pullings acting as his first lieutenant and two 

broken officers, West and Davidge, as second 

and third. He did not know them as anything 

but competent seamen, but he was aware that 

the sentences of their courts-martial had been 

thought extremely harsh in the service – West 

was dismissed for duelling, Davidge for signing 

a dishonest purser's accounts without


checking them – and that reinstatement was 

their chief aim in life. Up until recently they 

had been in a fair way to it; but when the Surprise 

was nearly a thousand miles out of Sydney 

Cove, sailing eastwards across the Pacific 

Ocean, it was found that a senior midshipman 

named Oakes had stowed a young gentlewoman 

away in the cable-tier; and this had 

led almost all the gunroom officers except Dr 

Maturin to behave extremely badly. Her instant 

marriage to Oakes had set her free in that she 

was no longer a transported convict liable to 

be taken up again, but it did not liberate her 

from the adulterous wishes, motions, and 

jealousies of her shipmates. West and 

Davidge were the worst and Captain Aubrey, 

coming late to an understanding of the position, 

had told them that if they did not put 

aside the barbarous open enmity that was 

spreading discord and inefficiency in the ship


he would turn them ashore: farewell for ever 

to any hope of reinstatement. 

Davidge had been killed in the recent action 

that made the Polynesian island of Moahu at 

least a nominal part of the British Empire and 

Oakes had gone off for Batavia with his 

Clarissa in a recaptured prize; but so far Captain 

Aubrey had said nothing. West did not 

know whether his zeal in the approaches to 

Moahu and in getting the carronades up 

through rough country and his modest part in 

the battle itself had earned him forgiveness or 

whether he should be dismissed when the ship 

reached Peru: an agonizing thought. What he 

did know, here and in the immediate present, 

was that a valuable prize, in which he would 

share even if he were later dismissed, had almost 

certainly escaped. They would never 

catch her before nightfall and in this hazy, 

moonless darkness, she could run a hundred


miles, never to be seen again. 

That was one torment to his spirit: another 

was that this morning Captain Aubrey had 

promoted Grainger, a forecastle-man in the 

starboard watch, to fill the vacancy left by 

Davidge's death, just as he had raised a 

young fellow called Sam Norton to replace 

Oakes. West had to admit that Grainger was 

a capital seaman, a master-mariner who had 

sailed his own brig on the Guinea run until he 

was taken by two Salee rovers off Cape Spartel; 

but he did not like the man at all. He had 

already known what it was to be shut up in the 

gunroom with a shipmate he detested, seeing 

him at every meal, hearing his voice; and now 

it seemed that he should have to go through 

the odious experience again for at least the 

breadth of the Pacific. Yet more than that, far 

more, he felt that the gunroom and the quarterdeck, 

the privileged places in a man-of-


war, were not only sacred in themselves but 

that they conferred a kind of sanctity on their 

rightful inhabitants, a particular being and an 

identity. He felt this strongly, though he found 

the notion difficult to express; and now that 

Davidge was dead there was nobody with 

whom he could discuss it. Pullings was a small 

tenant-farmer's son; Adams, though he acted 

as purser, was only the Captain's clerk; and 

Martin did not seem to think either family or 

caste of much importance. Dr Maturin, who 

lived almost entirely with the Captain, being 

his particular friend, was of illegitimate birth 

and the subject could not be raised with him; 

while even if West had been in high favour 

with his commander it would have been quite 

useless to suggest that if it was necessary to 

promote foremast jacks, as it was in this case, 

then they might be made master's mates, 

herding with the midshipmen, so that the gun-


room should be preserved: useless, because 

Jack Aubrey belonged to an older Navy in 

which a collier's mate like James Cook could 

die a much-honoured post-captain, and a 

foremast-hand like William Mitchell might begin 

his career by being flogged round the fleet 

and end it as a vice-admiral, rather than to 

the modern service, in which an officer had 

not only to pass for lieutenant but also for 

gentleman if he were to advance. 

Dr Maturin and his assistant had the usual 

seamen's diseases to treat and a few wounds 

to dress, not from the recent battle, which had 

been a mere point-blank butchery of an enemy 

caught in a narrow rocky defile, but from 

the wear and tear of dragging guns up and 

down a jungly mountainside. They also had 

one interesting case of a sailor who, less surefooted 

by land than by sea, had fallen on to 

the pointed end of a cut bamboo, which let air


into the cavity of his thorax, into his pleura, 

with the strangest effect on one lung. This they 

discussed at length, in Latin, to the great satisfaction 

of the sick-berth, where heads turned 

gravely from one speaker to the other, nodding 

from time to time, while the patient himself 

looked modestly down and Padeen Colman, 

Dr Maturin's almost monoglot Irish servant 

and loblolly-boy, wore his Mass-going 

reverential face. 

They never heard the orders that attended the 

swaying-up of the new topgallantmast, an 

anxious business at such a height and with 

such a swell; nor did they hear the cry of 

'Launch ho!' as the bosun's mate at the topmast 

head banged the fid home through the 

heel of the topgallantmast, thus supporting it 

on the topmast trestle-tree. The complex business 

of securing the long unhandy pole escaped 

them too – an exceedingly complex


business, for although before the swaying-up 

the shrouds had been placed over the head of 

the mast, followed by the backstays, the preventer-stays 

and the very stay itself, they all 

had to be made fast, bowsed upon and set up 

simultaneously with all possible dispatch so 

that they exerted an equally-balanced force 

fore and aft and on either side. The rigging of 

the topgallant yard with all its appurtenances 

also passed unnoticed; so did two typical naval 

illogicalities, for whereas by tradition and 

good sense only the lightest of the topmen 

laid out on the lofty yard to loose the sail, this 

time, once it was loosed, sheeted home and 

hoisted, the Captain, with his acknowledged 

sixteen stone, ran aloft with his glass to sweep 

what vague horizon could still be distinguished 

through the growing haze. 

But the medical men and their patients did 

make out the cheer as the ship returned to her


former course, and they did feel her heel as 

she gathered way, running with a far more 

lively motion, while all the mingled sounds of 

the wind in the rigging and the water streaming 

along her side took on the urgent note of 

a ship chasing once more. 

Almost immediately after the Surprise had 

settled into her accustomed pace, shouldering 

the strange-coloured sea high and wide, the 

hands were piped to dinner, and in the usual 

Bedlam of cries and banging mess-kids that 

accompanied the ceremony, Stephen returned 

to the quarterdeck, where the Captain was 

standing at the windward rail, gazing steadily 

out to the eastward: he felt Stephen's presence 

and called him over. 'I have never seen anything 

like it,' he said, nodding at the sea and 

the sky. 

'It is much thicker now than it was when I 

went below,' said Stephen. 'And now an umber


light pervades the whole, like a Claude 

Lorraine run mad.' 

'We had no noon observation, of course,' 

said Jack. 'There was no horizon and there 

was no sun to bring down to it either. But what 

really puzzles me is that every now and then, 

quite independent of the swell, the sea 

twitches: a quick pucker like a horse's skin 

when there are flies about. There. Did you 

see? A little quick triple wave on the rising 

swell.' 

'I did, too. It is extremely curious,' said 

Stephen. 'Can you assign any cause?' 

'No,' said Jack. 'I have never heard of such a 

thing.' He reflected for some minutes, and at 

each lift of the frigate's bows the spray came 

sweeping aft. 'But quite apart from all this,' he 

went on, 'I finished the draft of my official letter 

this morning, before we came within gun-


shot, and I should be uncommonly obliged if 

you would look through it, strike out errors 

and anything low, and put in some stylish expressions, 

before Mr Adams makes his fair 

copies.' 

'Sure I will put in what style there is at my 

command. But why do you say copies and 

why are you in haste? Whitehall is half the 

world away or even more for all love.' 

'Because in these waters we may meet with a 

homeward-bound whaler any day.' 

'Really? Really? Oh, indeed. Very well: I shall 

come as soon as our dinner is properly disposed 

of. And I shall write to Diana too.' 

'Your dinner? Oh yes, of course: I do hope it 

goes well. You will be changing very soon, no 

doubt.' He had no doubt at all, because his 

steward Killick, who also looked after Dr 

Maturin on formal occasions, had made his


appearance, standing at what he considered a 

respectful distance and fixing them with his 

shrewish, disapproving eye. He had been with 

them for many years, in all climates, and although 

he was neither very clever nor at all 

agreeable he had, by mere conviction of 

righteousness, acquired an ascendancy of 

which both were ashamed. Killick coughed. 

'And if you should see Mr West,' added Jack, 

'pray tell him I should like to see him for a 

couple of minutes. I do hope your dinner goes 

well,' he called after Stephen's back. 

The dinner in question was intended to welcome 

Grainger, now Mr Grainger, to the gunroom; 

Stephen too hoped that it would go 

well, and although he ordinarily ate his meals 

with Jack Aubrey in the cabin he meant to 

take his place in the gunroom for this occasion: 

since in principle the surgeon was a gun-


room officer his absence might be taken as a 

slight. Grainger, a reserved, withdrawn man, 

was much respected aboard, for although he 

had not belonged to the Surprise during her 

heroic days as a privateer, when she recaptured 

a Spaniard deep-laden with quicksilver, 

took an American commerce-raider and cut 

out the Diane from the harbour of St Martins, 

he was well known to at least half the crew. 

He had joined at the beginning of this voyage, 

very highly recommended by his fellowtownsmen 

of Shelmerston, a port that had 

provided the Surprise with scores of prime 

seamen, a curious little West Country place, 

much given to smuggling, privateering, and 

chapel-going. There were almost as many 

chapels as there were public houses, and 

Grainger was an elder of the congregation of 

Traskites, who met on Saturdays in a severe, 

sad-coloured building behind the rope-walk.


Although the Traskites' views were controversial, 

he and the younger men who came 

aboard with him were perfectly at home in the 

Surprise, which was an ark of dissent, containing 

Brownists, Sethians, Arminians, Muggletonians 

and several others, generally united in a 

seamanlike tolerance when afloat and always 

in a determined hatred of tithes when ashore. 

Stephen was well acquainted with him as a 

shipmate and above all as a patient (two calentures, 

a broken clavicle) and he valued his 

many qualities; but he knew very well how 

such a man, dignified and assured in his own 

circle, could suffer when he was removed from 

it. Pullings would be kindness itself; so would 

Adams; but kindness alone was not necessarily 

enough with so vulnerable a man as 

Grainger. Martin would certainly mean well, 

but he had always been more sensitive to the 

feelings of birds than to those of men, and


prosperity seemed to have made him rather 

selfish. Although he was sailing as Stephen's 

assistant he was in fact a clergyman and Jack 

had recently given him a couple of livings in 

his gift with the promise of a valuable third 

when it should fall in; Martin had all the particulars 

of these parishes and he discussed 

them over and over again, considering the 

possibility of different modes of gathering 

tithes or their equivalent and improvement of 

the glebes. But worse than the dullness of this 

conversation was a self-complacency that 

Stephen had never known in the penniless 

Martin of some years ago, who was incapable 

of being a bore. West he was not sure of. 

Here again there had been change: the 

moody, snappish, nail-biting West of their present 

longitude was quite unlike the cheerful 

young man who had so kindly and patiently 

rowed him about Botany Bay, looking for


seaweed. 

'Oh, Mr West,' he said, opening the gunroom 

door, 'before I forget it – the Captain would 

like to see you for a minute or two. I believe 

he is in the cabin.' 

'Jesus,' cried West, looking shocked; then 

recollecting himself, 'Thank you, Doctor.' He 

ran into his cabin, put on his best coat, and 

hurried up the ladder. 

'Come in,' called Jack. 

'I understand you wish to see me, sir.' 

'Oh yes, Mr West; but I shall not keep you a 

minute. Push those files aside and sit on the 

locker. I had meant to speak to you before, 

but I have been so taken up with paper-work 

that I have left it day after day: it is just to tell 

you that I was thoroughly satisfied with your 

conduct through our time at Moahu, particularly 

your exertion in getting the carronades up


that infernal mountain: most officerlike. I have 

mentioned it in my official letter; and I believe 

that if only you had contrived to be wounded 

you might have been fairly confident of reinstatement. 

Perhaps you will do better next 

time.' 

'Oh, I shall do my very best, sir,' cried West. 

'Arms, legs, anything... and may I say how infinitely 

I am obliged to you for mentioning me, 

sir?' 

'Mr Grainger, welcome to the gunroom,' said 

Tom Pullings, splendid in his uniform. 'Here is 

your place, next to Mr West. But first, messmates, 

let us drink to Mr Grainger's health.' 

'Good health,' 'Hear him,' 'Huzzay,' and 'Welcome,' 

cried the other four, emptying their 

glasses. 

'My dear love to you all, gentlemen,' said


Grainger, sitting down in a good blue coat 

borrowed from his cousin the carpenter, looking 

pale under his tan, grim and dangerous. 

But grimness could not withstand Pullings' 

and Stephen's good will, far less West's surprising 

flow of spirits: his happiness broke out 

in an extraordinary volubility – a thoroughly 

amiable volubility – and he rose high above 

his ordinary powers of anecdote and comic 

rhyme; and when he was not proposing riddles 

he laughed. There was no doubt that 

Grainger was pleased with his reception; he 

ate well, he smiled, he even laughed once or 

twice; but all the time Maturin saw his quick 

nervous eyes flitting from plate to plate, seeing 

just how the gunroom ate its dinner, managed 

its bread and drank its wine. Yet by puddingtime 

and toasts the anxiety was gone; 

Grainger joined in the song Farewell and 

adieu to you fine Spanish ladies and even


proposed one of his own: As I walked out one 

midsummer's morning, for to view the fields 

and the flowers so gay. 

'From what I could make out here on deck,' 

said Jack, when Stephen joined him for coffee, 

'your dinner seemed quite a cheerful affair.' 

'It went off as well as ever I had hoped,' said 

Stephen. 'Mr West was in a fine flow of spirits 

– jokes, riddles, conundrums, imitations of 

famous commanders, songs – I did not know 

he possessed such social gifts.' 

'I am heartily glad of it,' said Jack. 'But 

Stephen, you look a little worn.' 

'I am a little worn. All the more so for having 

first stepped on deck for a breath of air: the 

appearance of the ocean appalled me. I 

asked Bonden what he thought – was it often 

like this? He only shook his head and wished 

we might all be here come Sunday. Jack, what


do you think? Have you considered it?' 

'I considered it most of the time your Nebuchadnezzar's 

feast was going on, and I cannot 

remember ever having seen or read of anything 

like it; nor can I tell what it means. When 

you have glanced over my draft, perhaps we 

might go on deck again and see whether we 

can make it out.' 

Jack always sat uneasy while his official letters 

were read: he always broke the current of 

the reader's thoughts by saying 'The piece 

about the carronade-slides ain't very elegantly 

put, I am afraid... this is just a draft, you understand, 

not polished at all... Anything that 

ain't grammar or that you don't quite like, pray 

dash it out... I never was much of a hand with 

a pen,' but after all these years Stephen took 

no more notice of it than the thin drifting Irish 

rain.


With Jack's voice in the background, the roll 

and pitch of the ship and the crash of the sea 

on her weather-bow never affecting his concentration 

he read a succinct narrative, cast in 

the wooden service style: the Surprise, proceeding 

eastwards in accordance with their 

Lordships' instructions, had been overtaken in 

latitude 28° 31' S, longitude 168° 1' E by a 

cutter from Sydney with official information 

that the inhabitants of the island of Moahu 

were at war with one another and that the British 

seamen were being ill-used and their ships 

detained: Captain Aubrey was to deal with the 

situation, backing whichever side seemed 

more likely to acknowledge British sovereignty. 

He had therefore changed course for Moahu 

without loss of time, pausing only at 

Anamooka for water and provisions: here he 

found the whaler Daisy, recently from Moahu, 

whose master, Mr Wainwright, informed him


that the war between the chief of the northern 

part of Moahu and the queen of the south was 

complicated by the presence of a number of 

French mercenaries on the chief's side and of 

a privateer under American colours, the Franklin, 

commanded by another Frenchman allied 

to the chief, a Monsieur Dutourd. Acting upon 

this information, Captain Aubrey therefore 

proceeded with the utmost dispatch to Pabay, 

the northern port of Moahu, in the hope of 

finding the Franklin at anchor. She was not 

there, so having released the detained British 

ship, the Truelove, together with her surviving 

crew, and having destroyed the French garrison 

with the loss of one officer killed and two 

seamen wounded, he hastened to the southern 

harbour, which was about to be attacked 

from the mountains by the northern chief and 

probably from the sea by the privateer. The 

Surprise arrived in time: her people had the


happiness of defeating the northern land 

forces without loss before the arrival of the 

privateer, and Captain Aubrey received the 

assurance of the Queen's willingness to be a 

faithful ally to His Majesty. Here followed a 

more detailed account of the two actions and 

the letter returned to the appearance of the 

Franklin next morning – her inferior force – her 

flight – and Captain Aubrey's hope that in 

spite of her excellent sailing qualities she 

might soon be captured. 

'It seems to me a perfectly straightforward 

seamanlike account,' said Stephen, closing the 

folder. 'Admirably calculated for Whitehall, 

apart from a few quibbles I have pencilled in 

the margin. And I see why West was so 

happy.' 

'Yes: I thought it due to him; and perhaps I 

laid it on a little heavy, because I was so sorry 

about Davidge. Thank you, Stephen. Shall we


go on deck?' 

It was indeed a lurid and portentous sight, 

the sky quite hidden and the diffused glow, 

now more orange than umber, showed an irregularly 

turbulent sea flecked as far as the 

eye could see (which was not much above 

three miles) with broken water that should 

have been white and that in fact had taken on 

an unpleasant acid greenish tinge, most evident 

in the frigate's leeward bow-wave – an irregular 

bow-wave too, for now, although the 

swell was still very much present, rolling 

strongly from the north-east, the series of 

crests was interrupted by innumerable crossseas. 

They stood in silence; and all along the 

gangway and on the forecastle there were little 

groups of seamen, gazing in the same attentive 

way, with a few low murmured words.


'It is not unlike the typhoon that so nearly did 

for us when we were running for the Marquesas, 

south of the line,' observed Jack. 'But 

there are essential differences. The glass is 

perfectly steady, for one thing. Yet even so I 

believe I shall strike topgallantmasts.' Raising 

his voice he called for the bosun and gave the 

order; it was at once followed by the wailing 

of pipes and entirely superfluous cries of 'All 

hands to strike topgallantmasts. All hands. All 

hands, d'ye hear me there?' 

Without a word of complaint or a wry look, 

for they were much of the Captain's mind, the 

patient Surprises laid aloft to undo all they had 

done with such pains in the forenoon watch. 

They cast off all that had to be cast off; they 

clapped on to the mast-rope and by main 

force raised the foretopgallant so that the fid 

could be drawn out again and the whole lowered 

down; and this they did to the others in


succession, as well as running in the jibboom, 

making all fast and double-griping the 

boats. 

'A pretty halfwit I may look, if the poor souls 

have to sway them up again tomorrow,' said 

Jack in a low voice. 'But when I was very 

young I had such a lesson about not getting 

your upper masts down on deck in plenty of 

time – such a lesson! Now we are on deck I 

could tell you about it, pointing out the various 

ropes and spars.' 

'That would give me the utmost pleasure,' 

said Stephen. 

'It was when I was coming back from the 

Cape in the Minerva, a very wet ship, Captain 

Soules: once we were north of the line we had 

truly miserable weather, a whole series of 

gales from the westward. But the day after 

Christmas the wind grew quite moderate and


we not only let a reef out of the maintopsail 

but also sent up the topgallant mast and yard: 

yet during the night it freshened once more 

and we close-reefed the topsails again, got 

the topgallant yard down on deck and shaped 

the mast.' 

'Before this it was amorphous, I collect? 

Shapeless?' 

'What a fellow you are, Stephen. Shaping a 

mast means getting it ready to be struck. But, 

however, while this was in train, with the people 

tailing on to the mast-rope, the one that 

raises it a little, do you see, so that it can have 

a clear run down, the ship took a most prodigious 

lee-lurch, flinging all hands, still fast to 

their rope, into the scuppers. And since they 

hung on like good 'uns this meant that they 

raised the heel of the mast right up above the 

cross-trees, so that although the fid was out it 

could not be lowered down. Do you follow


me, Stephen, with my fid and heel and crosstrees?' 

'Perfectly, my dear. A most uncomfortable 

position, sure.' 

'So it was, upon my word. And before we 

could do anything about it the topmastspringstays 

parted, then the topmast stay itself; 

and the mast went, a few feet above the cap, 

and falling upon the lee topsail yardarm carried 

that away too. And all this mare's nest 

came down on the mainyard, parting the leelift 

– that is the lee-lift, you see? Then the 

weather quarter of the mainyard, hitting the 

top, shattered the weather side of the crosstrees; 

so that as far as the sails were concerned, 

the mainmast was useless. At that very 

moment the ship broached to, huge green 

seas coming aft. We survived; but ever since 

then I have been perhaps over-cautious. 

Though this afternoon I had meant to reduce


sail in any event.' 

'You do not fear losing the prize?' 

'Certainly I fear losing the prize: I should 

never say anything so unlucky as No, she is 

ours. I may lose her, of course; but you saw 

her start her water over the side, did you not?' 

'Sure I saw the water and the guns; and I saw 

how she drew away, free of all that weight. I 

spent a few moments liberating poor Mr Martin 

from behind the seat of ease where the 

wreckage had imprisoned him and he so 

squeamish about excrement, the creature, and 

when I looked up again she was much 

smaller, flying with a supernatural velocity.' 

'Yes, she holds a good wind. But she cannot 

cross the Pacific with what very little water she 

may have left – they pumped desperate hard 

and I saw ton after ton shoot into the sea – so 

she must double back to Moahu. The Sand-


wich Islands are much too far. I think he will 

put before the wind at about ten o'clock, 

meaning to slip past us with all lights dowsed 

during the graveyard watch – no moon, you 

know – and be well to the west of us by dawn, 

while we are still cracking on like mad lunatics 

to the eastward. My plan is to lie to in a little 

while, keeping a very sharp look-out; and if I 

do not mistake she will be in sight, a little to 

the south, at break of day, with the wind on 

her quarter and all possible sail abroad. I 

should add,' he went on after a pause in 

which Stephen appeared to be considering, 

'that taking into account her leeway, which I 

have been measuring ever since the chase 

began, I mean first to take the ship quite a 

long way south.' 

'The very same thought was in my mind,' said 

Stephen, 'though I did not presume to utter it. 

But tell me, before you lie in, do you not think


it might calm our spirits if we were to contemplate 

let us say Corelli rather than this apocalyptic 

sea? We have scarcely played a note 

since before Moahu. I never thought to dislike 

the setting sun, but this one adds an even 

more sinister tinge to everything in sight, unpleasant 

though it was before. Besides, those 

tawny clouds flying in every direction and 

these irregular waves, these boils of water fill 

me with melancholy thoughts.' 

'I should like it of all things,' said Jack. 'I do 

not intend to beat to quarters this evening – 

the people have had quite enough for one 

day – so we can make an early start.' 

A fairly early start: for the irregular waves that 

had disturbed Stephen Maturin's sense of order 

in nature now pitched him headlong down 

the companion-ladder, where Mr Grainger, 

standing at its foot, received him as phlegmatically 

as he would have received a half-


sack of dried peas, set him on his feet and 

told him 'that he should always keep one hand 

for himself and the other for the ship'. But the 

Doctor had flown down sideways, an ineffectual 

snatch at the rail having turned him about 

his vertical axis, so that Grainger caught him 

with one iron hand on his spine and the other 

on his upper belly, winding him to such an extent 

that he could scarcely gasp out a word of 

thanks. Then, when he had at last recovered 

his breath and the power of speech, it was 

found that his chair had to be made fast to 

two ring-bolts to allow him to hold his 'cello 

with anything like ease or even safety. 

He had a Geronimo Amati at home, just as 

Aubrey had a treasured Guarnieri, but they 

travelled with rough old things that could put 

up with extremes of temperature and humidity. 

The rough old things always started the evening 

horribly flat, but in time the players tuned


them to their own satisfaction, and exchanging 

a nod they dashed away into a duet which 

they knew very well indeed, having played it 

together these ten years and more, but in 

which they always found something fresh, 

some half-forgotten turn of phrase or of particular 

felicity. They also added new pieces of 

their own, small improvisations or repetitions, 

each player in turn. They might have pleased 

Corelli's ghost, as showing what power his 

music still possessed for a later generation: 

they certainly did not please Preserved Killick, 

the Captain's steward. 'Yowl, yowl, yowl,' he 

said to his mate on hearing the familiar 

sounds. 'They are at it again. I have a mind to 

put ratsbane in their toasted cheese.' 

'It cannot go on much longer,' said Grimble. 

'The cross-sea is getting up something cruel.' 

It was true. The ship was cutting such extraordinary 

capers that even Jack, a merman if


ever there was one, had to sit down, wedging 

himself firmly on a broad locker; and at the 

setting of the watch, after their traditional 

toasted cheese had been eaten, he went on 

deck to take in the courses and lie to under a 

close-reefed main topsail. He had, at least by 

dead-reckoning, reached something like the 

point he had been steering for; the inevitable 

leeway should do the rest by dawn; and he 

hoped that now the ship's motion would be 

eased. 

'Is it very disagreeable upstairs?' asked 

Stephen when he returned. 'I hear thunderous 

rain on the skylight.' 

'It is not so much very disagreeable as very 

strange,' said Jack. 'As black as can be, of 

course – never the smell of a star – and wet; 

and there are strong cross-seas, apparently 

flowing in three directions at once, which is 

contrary to reason. Lightning above the cloud,


too, showing deep red. Yet there is something 

else I can hardly put a name to.' He held the 

lamp close to the barometer, shook his head, 

and going back to his seat on the locker he 

said that the motion was certainly easier: perhaps 

they might go back to the andante? 

'With all my heart,' said Stephen, 'if I might 

have a rope round my middle to hold me to 

the chair.' 

'Of course you may,' said Jack. 'Killick! Killick, 

there. Lash the Doctor into his seat, and 

let us have another decanter of port.' 

The andante wound its slow length along 

with a curious gasping unpredictable rhythm; 

and when they had brought it to its hesitant 

end, each looking at the other with reproach 

and disapproval at each false note, Jack said, 

'Let us drink to Zephyrus, the son of Millpond.' 

He was in the act of pouring a glass when the


ship pitched with such extraordinary violence – 

pitched as though she had fallen into a hole – 

that he very nearly fell, and the glass left the 

wine in the air, a coherent body for a single 

moment. 

'This will never do,' he said: and then, 'What 

in Hell was that crash?' He stood listening for 

a moment, and then in reply to a knock on the 

door he called, 'Come in.' 

'Mr West's duty, sir,' said Norton, the newlyappointed 

midshipman, dripping on the chequered 

deck-cloth, 'and there is firing on the 

larboard bow.' 

'Thank you, Mr Norton,' said Jack. 'I shall 

come at once.' He quickly stowed his fiddle on 

the locker and ran on deck. While he was still 

on the ladder there was another heavy crash, 

then as he reached the quarterdeck and the 

pouring rain, several more far forward.


'There, sir,' said West, pointing to a jetting 

glow, blurred crimson through the milk-warm 

rain. 'It comes and goes. I believe we are under 

mortar-fire.' 

'Beat to quarters,' called Jack, and the bosun's 

mate wound his call. 'Mr West – Mr 

West, there. D'ye hear me?' He raised his 

voice immensely, calling for a lantern: it 

showed West flat on his face, pouring blood. 

'Fore topsail,' cried Jack, putting the ship before 

the wind, and as she gathered way he 

told two of the afterguard to carry West below. 

'Forestaysail and jib.' 

The ship came to life, to battle-stations, with 

a speed and regularity that would have given 

him deep satisfaction if he had had a second 

to feel it.


Stephen was already in the sick-berth with a 

sleepy Martin and a half-dressed Padeen 

when West was brought down, followed by 

half a dozen foremast hands, two of them 

walking cases. 'A severe depressed fracture on 

either side of the coronal suture,' said 

Stephen, having examined West under a powerful 

lantern, 'and of course this apparently 

meaningless laceration. Deep coma. Padeen, 

Davies, lift him as gently as ever you can to 

the mattress on the floor back there; lay him 

face down with a little small pad under his 

forehead the way he can breathe. Next.' 

The next man, with a compound fracture of 

his left arm and a series of gashes down his 

side, required close, prolonged attention: sewing, 

snipping, binding-up. He was a man of 

exceptional fortitude even for a foremast jack 

and between involuntary gasps he told them 

that he had been the larboard midship look-


out when he saw this sudden spurt of red to 

windward and a glow under the cloud, and he 

was hailing the quarterdeck when he heard 

something like stones or even grapeshot hitting 

the topsail and then there was a great 

crash and he was down. He lay on the gangway 

staring through the scuppers with the rain 

soaking him through and through before he 

understood what had happened, and he saw 

that red spurt show twice: not like a gun, but 

more lasting and crimson: perhaps a battery, 

a ragged salvo. Then a cross-sea and a leelurch 

tossed him into the waist until old Plaice 

and Bonden fished him out. 

The groaning from a man against the side 

grew almost to a scream. 'Oh, oh, oh. Forgive 

me, mates; I can't bear it. Oh, oh, oh, oh...' 

'Mr Martin, pray see what you can do,' said 

Stephen. 'Sarah, my dear, give me the silkthread 

needle.'


As she passed it Sarah said in his ear, 'Emily 

is frightened.' 

Stephen nodded, holding the needle between 

his lips. He was not exactly frightened himself, 

but he did dread misplacing an instrument orprobe. 

Even down here the ship was moving 

with a force he had never known: the lantern 

swung madly, with no sort of rhythm now; and 

he could scarcely keep his footing. 

'This cannot go on,' he murmured. But it did 

go on; and as he and Martin worked far into 

the night that part of his mind which was not 

taken up with probing, sawing, splinting, sewing 

and bandaging heard and partly recorded 

what was going on around him – the talk between 

the hands treated or waiting for treatment, 

the news brought by fresh cases, the 

seamen's interpretation of the various sounds 

and cries on deck.


'There's the foretopmast gone.' 

A long discussion of bomb-vessels and the 

huge mortars they carried: agreement: contradiction. 

'Oh for my coca-leaves,' thought Stephen, 

who so very urgently needed a clear sharp 

mind untouched by sleep, and a steady hand. 

The maintop was broken, injured or destroyed; 

but the half-heard voices said they 

should have had to get the topmast down on 

deck anyhow, with such a sea running and the 

poor barky almost arsy-versy every minute... 

poor sods on deck... it was worse than the 

tide-race off Sumburgh Head... 'This was the 

day Judas Iscariot was born,' said an Orkneyman. 

'Mr Martin, the saw, if you please: hold back 

the flap and be ready with the tourniquet. 

Padeen, let him not move at all.' And bending


over the patient, 'This will hurt for the moment, 

but it will not last. Hold steady.' 

The amputation gave place to another example 

of these puzzling lacerated wounds; 

and Reade came below followed by Killick 

with a covered mug of coffee. 

'Captain's compliments, sir,' said Reade, 'and 

he thinks the worst may be over: stars in the 

south-south-west and the swell not quite so 

pronounced.' 

'Many thanks, Mr Reade,' said Stephen. 'And 

God bless you, Killick.' He swallowed half the 

mug, passing Martin the rest. 'Tell me, have 

we been severely pierced? I hear the pumps 

have been set a-going, and there is a power 

of water underfoot.' 

'Oh no, sir. The masts and the maintop have 

suffered, but the water is only the ship working, 

hauling under the chains so her seams


open a little. May I ask how Mr West comes 

along, and Wilcox and Veale, of my division?' 

'Mr West is still unconscious. I believe I must 

open his skull tomorrow. We took Wilcox's 

fingers off just now: he never said a word and 

I think he will do well. Veale I have set back till 

dawn. An eye is a delicate matter and we must 

have daylight.' 

'Well, sir, that will not be long now. Canopus 

is dipping, and it should be dawn quite soon.'


TWO 

A reluctant dawn, a dim blood-red sun; and 

although the sea was diminishing fast it was 

still wilder than most sailors had ever seen, 

with bursting waves and a still-prodigious 

swell. A desolate ocean, grey now under a 

deathly white, rolling with enormous force, but 

still with no life upon it apart from these two 

ships, now dismasted and tossing like paper 

boats on a millstream. They were at some distance 

from one another, both apparently 

wrecks, floating but out of control: beyond 

them, to windward, a newly-arisen island of 

black rock and cinders. It no longer shot out 

fire, but every now and then, with an enor-


mous shriek, a vast jet of steam leapt from the 

crater, mingled with ash and volcanic gases. 

When Jack first saw the island it was a hundred 

and eighty feet high, but the rollers had 

already swept away great quantities of the 

clinker and by the time the sun was clear of 

the murk not fifty feet remained. 

The more northern of the ships, the Surprise, 

was in fact quite well in hand, lying to under a 

storm trysail on her only undamaged lower 

mast, while her people did all that very weary 

men could do – it had been all hands all night 

– to repair her damaged maintop and to cross 

at least the lower yard. They had the strongest 

motives for doing so, since their quarry, totally 

dismasted and wallowing gunwales under on 

the swell, lay directly under their lee; but there 

was no certainty that helpless though she 

seemed she might not send up some kind of a 

jury-rig and slip away into the thick weather


with its promise of blinding squalls. 

'Larbolines bowse,' cried Captain Aubrey, 

watching the spare topmast with anxious care. 

'Bowse away. Belay!' And to his first lieutenant, 

'Oh Tom, how I hope the Doctor comes on 

deck before the land vanishes.' 

Tom Pullings shook his head. 'When last I 

saw him, perhaps an hour ago, he could 

hardly stand for sleep: blood up to the elbows 

and blood where he had wiped his eyes.' 

'It would be the world's pity, was he to miss 

all this,' said Jack. He was no naturalist, but 

from first light he had been very deeply impressed 

not only by this mineral landscape but 

also by the universal death all round as far as 

eye could see. Countless fish of every kind, 

most wholly unknown to him, lay dead upon 

their sides; a sperm whale, not quite grey, 

floated among them; abyssal forms, huge


squids, trailing half the length of the ship. And 

never a bird, never a single gull. A sulphurous 

whiff from the island half-choked him. 'He will 

never forgive me if I do not tell him,' he said. 

'Do you suppose he has turned in?' 

'Good morning, gentlemen,' said Stephen 

from the companion-ladder. 'What is this I 

hear about an island?' He was looking indescribably 

frowzy, unwashed, unshaved, no 

wig, old bloody shirt, bloody apron still round 

his waist; and it was clear that even he felt it 

improper to advance to the holy place itself. 

'Let me steady you,' said Jack, stepping 

across the heaving deck. Stephen had dipped 

his hands but not his arms, and they looked 

like pale gloves against the red-brown. Jack 

seized one, hauled him up and led him to the 

rail. 'There is the island,' he said. 'But tell me, 

how is West? And are any of the others dan-


gerously hurt?' 

'West: there is no change, and I can do nothing 

until I have more light and a steadier basis. 

As for the others, there is always the possibility 

of sepsis and mortification, but with the 

blessing I think they will come through. So that 

is your island. And God help us, look at the 

sea! A rolling, heaving graveyard. Jesus, Mary 

and Joseph. Whales: seven, no eight, species 

of shark: scombridae: cephalopods... and all 

parboiled. This is exactly what Dr Falconer of 

the Daisy told us about – submarine eruption, 

immense turbulence, the appearance of an island 

of rock or cinders, a cone shooting out 

flames, mephitic vapours, volcanic bombs and 

scoriae – and I never grasped what was happening. 

Yet there I had the typical lacerated 

wounds, sometimes accompanied by scorching, 

and the evidence of heavy globular objects 

striking sails, deck, masts, and of course


poor West. You knew what was afoot, I am 

sure?' 

'Not until we began knotting and splicing at 

first light,' said Jack, 'and when they brought 

me some of your bombs – there is one there 

by the capstan must weigh fifty pound – and 

showed me the cinders the rain had not 

washed away. Then I saw the whole thing 

plain. I think I should have smoked it earlier if 

the island had blazed away good and steady, 

like Stromboli; but it kept shooting out jets, 

quite like a battery of mortars. But at least I 

was not so foolishly mistaken about the Franklin. 

There she lies, right under our lee. You will 

have to stand on the caronnade-slide to see 

her: take my glass.' 

The Franklin was of infinitely less interest to 

Dr Maturin than the encyclopaedia of marine 

life heaving on the swell below, but he 

climbed up, gazed, and said, 'She is in the sad


way altogether, with no masts at all. How she 

rolls! Do you suppose we shall be able to 

catch her? Our sails seem somewhat out of 

order.' 

'Perhaps we shall,' said Jack. 'We should 

have steerage-way in about five minutes. But 

there is no hurry. She has few hands on deck, 

and those few cannot be called very brisk. I 

had much rather bear down fully prepared, so 

that there can be no argument, no foolish 

waste of life, let alone spars and cordage.' 

Six bells, and Stephen said, 'I must go below.' 

Jack gave him a hand as far as the ladder, 

and having urged him 'to clap on for dear life' 

asked whether they should meet for breakfast, 

adding that 'this unnatural hell-fire sea would 

go down as suddenly as it had got up.' 

'A late breakfast? I hope so indeed,' said 

Stephen, making his way down by single steps


and moving, as Jack noticed for the first time, 

like an old man. 

It was after this late breakfast that Stephen, 

somewhat restored and by now reconciled to 

the fact that the dead marine animals were 

too far altered by heat, battering and sometimes 

by great change of depth to be valued 

as specimens, sat under an awning watching 

the Franklin grow larger. For the rest, he and 

Martin contented themselves with counting at 

least the main genera and rehearsing all that 

Dr Falconer had said about submarine volcanic 

activity, so usual in these parts; they had 

little energy for more. The wind had dropped, 

and a squall having cleared the air of volcanic 

dust, the sun beat down on the heaving sea 

with more than ordinary strength: the Surprise, 

under forecourse and main topsail, bore 

slowly down on the privateer, rarely exceeding 

three knots. Her guns were loaded and run


out; her boarders had their weapons at hand; 

but their earlier apprehensions had died away 

entirely. The chase had suffered much more 

than they had; she was much less well 

equipped with stores and seamen; and she 

made no attempt to escape. It had to be admitted 

that with scarcely three foot of her main 

and mizen masts showing above deck and the 

foremast gone at the partners her condition 

was almost desperate; but she could surely 

have done something with the wreckage over 

the side, still hanging by the shrouds and 

stays, something with the spars still to be seen 

in her waist, something with her undamaged 

bowsprit? The Surprises looked at her with a 

certain tolerant contempt. With the monstrous 

seas fast declining the galley fires had been lit 

quite early, and this being Thursday they had 

all eaten a pound of reasonably fresh pork, 

half a pint of dried peas, some of the remain-


ing Moahu yams, and as a particular indulgence 

a large quantity of plum duff; they had 

also drunk a quarter of a pint of Sydney rum, 

publicly diluted with three quarters of a pint of 

water and lemon-juice, and now with full bellies 

and benevolent minds they felt that the 

natural order of things was returning: the 

barky, though cruelly mauled, was in a fair 

way to being shipshape; and they were bearing 

down upon their prey. 

Closer and closer, until the capricious breeze 

headed them and Jack steered south and west 

to run alongside the Franklin on the following 

tack. But as the Surprise was seen to change 

course a confused bawling arose from the 

Franklin and a kind of raft was launched over 

her side, paddled by a single man with a 

bloody bandage round his head. Jack let fly 

the sheets, checking the frigate's way, and the 

man, heaved closer by the swell, called, 'Pray


can you give me some water for our wounded 

men? They are dying of thirst.' 

'Do you surrender?' 

The man half raised himself to reply – he was 

clearly no seaman – and cried, 'How can you 

speak so at such a time, sir? Shame on you.' 

His voice was harsh, high-pitched and furiously 

indignant. Jack's expression did not 

change, but after a pause in which the raft 

drifted nearer he hailed the bosun on the 

forecastle: 'Mr Bulkeley, there. Let the Doctor's 

skiff be lowered down with a couple of breakers 

in it.' 

'If you have a surgeon aboard, it would be a 

Christian act in him to relieve their pain,' said 

the man on the raft, now closer still. 

'By God...' began Jack, and there were exclamations 

all along the gangway; but as 

Stephen and Martin had already gone below


for their instruments Jack said no more than 

'Bonden, Plaice, pull them over. And you had 

better pass that raft a line. Mr Reade, take 

possession.' 

Ever since this chase began Stephen had 

been considering his best line of conduct in 

the event of its success. His would have been 

a delicate mission in any event, since it presupposed 

activities contrary to Spanish interests 

in South America at a time when Spain 

was at least nominally an ally of the United 

Kingdom; but now that the British government 

had been compelled to deny the existence of 

any such undertaking it was more delicate by 

far, and he was extremely unwilling to be recognized 

by Dutourd, whom he had met in 

Paris: not that Dutourd was a Bonapartist or in 

any way connected with French intelligence, 

but he had an immense acquaintance and he 

was incurably talkative – far too talkative for


any intelligence service to consider making 

use of him. Dutourd was the man on the raft, 

the owner of the Franklin, and the sequence of 

events that had brought about their curious 

proximity, separated by no more than twenty 

feet of towline, was this: Dutourd, a man of 

passionate enthusiasms, had like many others 

at the time fallen in love with the idea of a terrestrial 

Paradise to be founded in a perfect 

climate, where there should be perfect equality 

as well as justice, and plenty without excessive 

labour, trade or the use of money, a true democracy, 

a more cheerful Sparta; and unlike 

most others he was rich enough to carry his 

theories into something like practice, acquiring 

this American-built privateer, manning her 

with prospective settlers and a certain number 

of seamen, most of the people being French 

Canadians or men from Louisiana, and sailing 

her to Moahu, an island well south of Hawaii,


where with the help of a northern chief and his 

own powers of persuasion, he hoped to found 

his colony. But the northern chief had misused 

some British ships and seaman, and the Surprise, 

sent to deal with the situation, destroyed 

him in a short horrible battle immediately before 

the Franklin sailed in from a cruise, a private 

ship of war wearing American colours. 

The chase had begun in what seemed another 

world; now it was ending. As the crowded 

boat rose and fell, traversing the last quarter 

of a mile, Stephen derived some comfort from 

the fact that during his earlier years in Paris he 

had used the second half of his name, 

Maturin y Domanova (Mathurin, spelt with an 

h but pronounced without it, having ludicrous 

associations with idiocy in the jargon of that 

time) and from the reflexion that it was much 

easier to feign stupidity than wisdom – although 

it might be a mistake to know no


French at all he did not have to speak it very 

well. 

'Bring the raft against the chains,' called 

Reade. 

'Against the chains it is, sir,' replied Bonden; 

and looking over his shoulder he pulled hard 

ahead, judging the swell just so. The raft 

lurched against the Franklin's side, and she 

was so low in the water that it was no great 

step for Dutourd to go aboard directly. Two 

more heaves and Bonden hooked on. Dutourd 

helped Stephen over the shattered gunwale 

with one hand while with the other he 

swept off his hat, saying, 'I am deeply sensible 

of your goodness in coming, sir.' Stephen instantly 

saw that his anxiety had been quite 

needless: there was no hint of recognition in 

the earnest look that accompanied these 

words. Of course, a public man like Dutourd, 

perpetually addressing assemblies, meeting


scores, even hundreds of people a day, would 

not remember a slight acquaintance of several 

years ago – three or four meetings in Madame 

Roland's salon before the war, at a time when 

his republican principles had already caused 

him to change his name from du Tourd to 

Dutourd, and then two or three dinners during 

the short-lived peace. Yet himself he would 

have known Dutourd, a curiously striking man, 

more full of life than most, giving the impression 

of being physically larger than he was in 

fact: an animated face, an easy rapid flow of 

speech. Upright: head held high. These 

thoughts presented themselves to his mind 

while at the same time he registered the desolation 

fore and aft, the tangle of sailcloth, 

cordage and shattered spars, the demoralization 

of the hands. Some few were still mechanically 

pumping but most were either 

drunk or reduced to a hopeless apathy.


Martin, Reade and Plaice boarded the Franklin 

on three successive swells, Bonden fending 

off; and in a high clear voice Reade, taking off 

his hat, said, 'Monsieur, je prends le commandement 

de ce vaisseau.' 

'Bien, Monsieur,' said Dutourd. 

Reade stepped to the stump of the mainmast: 

Plaice lashed a stray studding-sail boom to it 

and amid the heavy indifference of the Franklin's 

crew they hoisted British colours. There 

was a modest cheer from the Surprise. Dutourd 

said 'Gentlemen, most of the wounded 

are in the cabin. May I lead the way?' 

As they went down the ladder they heard 

Reade call to Bonden, who had an extremely 

powerful voice, telling him to hail the ship and 

ask for the bosun, his mate, Padeen and all 

the hands who could be spared: the prize was 

near foundering.


On the starboard side of the cabin a dozen 

men lay side by side and another was 

stretched out motionless on the stern-window 

locker; in this heat they were suffering terribly 

from thirst. But the ship had such a heel to 

larboard that on the other side there was a 

wretched tangle of living and dead washing 

about with every roll: screams, groaning, a 

shocking stench and cries for help, cries for 

rescue. 

'Come, sir, take off your coat,' said Stephen. 

Dutourd obeyed and the three of them pulled 

and lifted with what care they could. The dead 

they dragged to the half-deck; the living they 

laid in something like an order of urgency. 

'Can you command your men?' asked 

Stephen. 

'Some few, I think,' said Dutourd. 'But most of 

them are drunk.'


'Then tell them to throw the dead overboard 

and to bring buckets and swabs to clean 

where the dead men lay.' He called to Bonden 

out of the shattered stern-window, 'Barret 

Bonden, now. Can you heave up the little keg 

till Mr Martin and I can catch a hold on it?' 

'I'll try, sir,' said Bonden. 

'We shall have to move this man,' said 

Stephen, nodding at the figure lying on the 

locker. 'In any case he is dead.' 

'He was my sailing-master,' said Dutourd. 

'Your last shot killed him, his mate and most of 

the crew. The other gun burst.' 

Stephen nodded. He had seen a raking shot 

do terrible damage; and as for a bursting 

gun... 'Shall we ease him out of the window? I 

must look to these men at once.' 

'Very well,' said Dutourd, and as the rigid 

corpse slid into the sea so Bonden called, 'On


the rise, sir; clap on,' and the keg came 

aboard. Martin started the bung with a serving-mallet: 

he had only a filthy can to serve it 

out, but in this unnatural parching heat neither 

filth nor can was of the least account, only the 

infinitely precious water. 

'Now, sir,' said Stephen to Dutourd, 'a pint is 

all, or you will bloat. Sit here and show me 

your head.' Beneath the handkerchief, dried 

blood and matted hair, there was a razor-like 

cut along the side of his scalp, certainly a 

piece of flying metal: Stephen clipped, 

sponged and sewed – no reaction as the needle 

went in – clapped a bandage over all and 

said, 'That should answer for the moment. 

Pray go on deck and set your men to pumping 

more briskly. They may have the other 

breaker.' 

Stephen was thoroughly accustomed to the 

consequences of a battle at sea and Martin


moderately so, but here the usual gunshot and 

splinter wounds and the frightful effects of a 

bursting gun were accompanied by the unfamiliar 

wounds caused by volcanic eruption, 

worse lacerations than they had seen in the 

Surprise and, since the Franklin had been 

closer to the vent, much more severe burning. 

They were both dog-tired, short of supplies, 

short of strength and of breath in the stifling 

heat of the cabin, and it was with relief that 

they saw Padeen arrive with lint, tow, bandages, 

splints, all that an intelligent man could 

think of, and heard Mr Bulkeley wind his call, 

ordering the Franklins to the pumps. They 

might not have understood the bosun's 

French, but there was no mistaking his rope's 

end, his pointing finger and his terrible voice. 

Jack had sent Awkward Davies over with 

Padeen, as well as the bosun and all the expert 

hands he could spare – Davies was bid-


dable with Stephen – and with these two very 

powerful men to lift, hold and restrain, the 

medicoes dealt with their patients each in turn. 

They were taking a leg off at the hip when 

Reade came below: averting his ashy face he 

said, 'Sir, I am to carry the Franklin's master 

back to the ship with his papers. Have you any 

message?' 

'None, thank you, Mr Reade. Padeen, clap 

on, now.' 

'Before I go, sir, shall I get the bosun to unship 

the companion?' 

Stephen did not hear him through the patient's 

long quavering scream, but a moment 

later the whole framework overhead was lifted 

off and the fetid room was filled with brilliant 

light and clean, almost cool sea-air. 

From the first Jack Aubrey had disliked all 

that he had heard of Dutourd: Stephen de-


scribed him as a good benevolent man who 

had been misled first by 'that mumping villain 

Rousseau' and later by his passionate belief in 

his own system, based it was true on a hatred 

of poverty, war and injustice, but also on the 

assumption that men were naturally and 

equally good, needing only a firm, friendly 

hand to set them on the right path, the path to 

the realization of their full potentialities. This of 

course entailed the abolition of the present 

order, which had so perverted them, and of 

the established churches. It was old, old stuff, 

familiar in all its variations, but Stephen had 

never heard it expressed with such freshness, 

fire and conviction. Neither fire nor conviction 

survived to reach Jack in Stephen's summary, 

however, but the doctrine that levelled Nelson 

with one of his own bargemen was clear 

enough, and he watched the approaching 

boat with a cold look in his eye.


The coldness grew to strong disapproval 

when Dutourd, coming aboard in the traditional 

manner with the side-men offering him 

hand-ropes, failed to salute the quarterdeck. 

He had also failed to put on a sword to make 

his formal surrender. Jack at once retired to 

his cabin, saying to Pullings, 'Tom, pray bring 

that man below, with his papers.' 

He received Dutourd sitting, but he did not 

tell Killick to place a chair for the gentleman, 

while to Dutourd himself he said 'I believe, sir, 

that you speak English fluently?' 

'Moderately so, sir: and may I use what fluency 

I possess to thank you for your humanity 

to my people? Your surgeon and his assistant 

have exerted themselves nobly.' 

'You are very good, sir,' said Jack with a civil 

inclination of his head; and after an enquiry 

about Dutourd's wound he said 'I take it that


you are not a seaman by profession? That you 

are not very well acquainted with the customs 

of the sea?' 

'Scarcely at all, sir. I have managed a pleasure-boat, 

but for the open sea I have always 

engaged a sailing-master. I cannot describe 

myself as a seaman: I have spent very little 

time on the sea.' 

'That alters the case somewhat,' thought Jack, 

and he said 'Please to show me your papers.' 

Dutourd's most recent sailing-master had 

been an exact and orderly person as well as a 

taut skipper and an excellent seaman, and 

Dutourd handed over a complete set wrapped 

in waxed sailcloth. 

Jack looked through them with satisfaction; 

then frowned and looked through the parcels 

again. 'But where is your commission, or letter 

of marque?'


'I have no commission or letter of marque, 

sir,' replied Dutourd, shaking his head and 

smiling a little. 'I am only a private citizen, not 

a naval officer. My sole purpose was to found 

a colony for the benefit of mankind.' 

'No commission, either American or French?' 

'No, no. It never occurred to me to solicit 

one. Is it looked upon as a necessary formality?' 

'Very much so.' 

'I remember having received a letter from the 

Minister of Marine wishing me every happiness 

on my voyage: perhaps that would answer?' 

'I am afraid not, sir. Your happiness has included 

the taking of several prizes, I collect?' 

'Why, yes, sir. You will not think me impertinent 

if I observe that our countries, alas, are in 

a state of war.'


'So I understand. But wars are conducted according 

to certain forms. They are not wild riots 

in which anyone may join and seize whatever 

he can overpower; and I fear that if you 

can produce nothing better than the recollection 

of a letter wishing you every happiness 

you must be hanged as a pirate.' 

'I am concerned to hear it. But as for prizes, 

as for the merely privateering aspects of the 

voyage, Mr Chauncy, my sailing-master, has a 

paper from his government. We sailed under 

American colours, you will recall. It is in a 

cover marked Mr Chauncy's qualifications and 

references in my writing-desk.' 

'You did not bring it?' 

'No, sir. The young gentleman with one arm 

told me there was not a moment to be lost, so 

I abandoned all my personal property.' 

'I shall send for it. Pray describe the writing-


desk.' 

'An ordinary brass-bound walnut-tree writingdesk 

with my name on the plate; but there can 

be very little hope of finding it now.' 

'Why do you say that?' 

'My dear sir, I have seen sailors at work 

aboard a captured ship.' 

Jack made no reply but glancing through the 

scuttle he saw that Bulkeley and his men had 

now raised a spar on the stump of her mizenmast, 

and that with an improvised lugsail she 

was lying with her head to the sea, lying much 

easier. The Surprise would be alongside in a 

few minutes. 

'Have you any officer surviving unhurt?' he 

asked. 

'None, sir. They were both killed.' 

'A servant?'


'Yes, sir. He hid below, with the ransomers.' 

'Killick. Killick, there. Pass the word for Captain 

Pullings.' 

'Aye aye, sir: Captain Pullings it is,' replied 

Killick, who could give a civil answer when 

guests or prisoners of rank were present: but 

instead of Pullings there appeared young Norton, 

who said, 'I beg pardon, sir, but Captain 

Pullings and Mr Grainger are at the masthead, 

getting the top over. May I carry them a 

message?' 

'Are they got so far so soon? Upon my word! 

Never worry them at such a delicate point, Mr 

Norton. Jump up on deck yourself, borrow a 

speaking-trumpet and hail the Franklin, telling 

Bonden and Plaice to have Mr Dutourd's servant, 

sea-chest and writing-desk ready to be 

brought across as soon as there is a moment 

to spare. But first take this gentleman into the


gunroom and tell the steward to bring him 

whatever he calls for. I am going into the foretop.' 

'Aye aye, sir. Mr Dutourd's servant, sea-chest 

and writing-desk as soon as there is a moment; 

and Mr Dutourd to the gunroom.' 

Dutourd opened his mouth to speak, but it 

was too late. Jack, throwing off his coat, sped 

from the cabin, making the deck tremble as 

he went. Norton said, 'This way, sir, if you 

please,' and some minutes later the message 

reached Bonden's ear as he and his mates 

were hauling an uninjured topmast aboard by 

its shrouds. He in turn hailed the bosun: 'Mr 

Bulkeley, there. I must take Mr Dutourd's servant, 

chest and writing-desk across. May I 

have the skiff?' 

'Yes, mate,' replied the bosun, his mouth 

filled with rope-yarns, 'unless you had sooner


walk. And bring me back a pair of girt-lines 

and two long-tackle blocks. And the coil of 

one-and-a-half-inch manila abaft the fore 

hatchway.' 

Jack returned to the cabin with the liveliest 

satisfaction: in spite of the absence of Mr 

Bulkeley and many very able seamen the Surprise 

had made an extraordinary recovery. It 

was true that she had at least half a dozen 

forecastlemen who, apart from the paperwork, 

could have served with credit as bosun 

in a man-of-war, and it was true that as Jack 

was wealthy she was uncommonly well supplied 

with stores; yet even so the change from 

the chaos of first light to the present approach 

to trim efficiency was very striking. At this rate 

the frigate, with four new pairs of preventerstays 

set up in the morning, would be able to 

carry on under topsails and courses tomorrow; 

for the trades were already steadying over a


more nearly normal sea. 

'Pass the word for Mr Dutourd,' he called. 

'Which his name is really Turd,' observed Killick 

to his mate Grimshaw before making his 

way to the gunroom to wake the red-eyed 

Frenchman. 

'There you are, sir,' said Jack, as he was led 

into the cabin. 'Here is your sea-chest, and 

here is what appears to be your writing-desk,' 

pointing to a box whose brass plate, already 

automatically polished by Killick, bore the 

name Jean du Tourd clear and plain. 

'I am amazed,' cried Dutourd. 'I never 

thought to see them again.' 

'I hope you will be able to find the cover you 

spoke of.' 

'I am sure I shall: the desk is still locked,' said 

Dutourd, feeling for his keys. 

'I ask pardon, sir,' said Mr Adams, Jack's


highly-valued clerk, 'but it wants less than a 

minute to the hour.' 

'Forgive me, Monsieur,' cried Jack, leaping 

from his seat. 'I shall be back in a few moments. 

Pray search for your paper.' 

He and Adams had been carrying out a 

chain of observations, always made at stated 

intervals: wind direction and strength, estimated 

current, barometrical pressure, compass 

variations, humidity, temperature of the 

air (both wet bulb and dry) and of the sea at 

given depths together with the salinity at those 

depths, and the blueness of the sky, a series 

that was to be carried round the world and 

communicated to Humboldt on the one hand 

and the Royal Society on the other. It would 

be a great pity to break its exact sequence at 

such a very interesting point. 

A long pause; nautical cries; the click-click-


click of capstan-pawls as a great spar rose up: 

and almost immediately after the cry of 'Belay!' 

Captain Aubrey returned. 

'I have found the certificate,' said Dutourd, 

starting up from his half-doze and handing 

him a paper. 

'I rejoice to hear it,' said Jack. He sat down at 

his desk; but having read the letter attentively 

he frowned and said, 'Yes, this is very well, 

and it allows Mr William B. Chauncy, who was 

I presume your sailing-master, to take, burn, 

sink or destroy ships or vessels belonging to 

His Britannic Majesty or sailing under British 

colours. But it makes no mention of Mr Dutourd. 

No mention at all.' 

Dutourd said nothing. He was yellow-pale by 

now: he put his hand to his bandaged head, 

and Jack had the impression that he no longer 

cared whether he was to be hanged as a pi-


rate or not, so long as he was allowed to lie 

down in peace for a while. 

Jack considered for some moments and then 

said, 'Well, sir, I must say you are an anomalous 

kind of prisoner, rather like the creature 

that was neither flesh nor fowl nor good red 

herring but partook of each: the Sphinx. You 

are a sort of owner, a sort of commander, 

though absent from the muster-roll, and a sort 

of what I can only call a pirate. I am not at all 

sure what I ought to do with you. As you have 

no commission I cannot treat you as an officer: 

you cannot berth aft.' Another pause, during 

which Dutourd closed his eyes. 'But fortunately 

the Surprise is a roomy ship with a small 

company, and right forward on the lower deck 

we have made cabins for the gunner, the bosun 

and the carpenter. There are still two to 

spare and you shall have one of them. Since 

you have no surviving officers you will have to


mess by yourself, but I dare say the gunroom 

will invite you quite often; and of course you 

may have the liberty of the quarterdeck.' 

Dutourd made no acknowledgement of this 

offer. His head drooped, and the next roll 

pitched him right out of his seat, head first. 

Jack picked him up, laid him on the cushioned 

stern lock and called for Killick. 

'What are you a-thinking of, sir?' cried his 

steward. 'Don't you see he is bleeding like a 

pig from under his bandage?' Killick whipped 

into the quarter-gallery for a towel and thrust it 

under Dutourd's head. 'Now I must take all 

them covers off and soak them this directly 

minute in cold fresh water and there ain't no 

cold fresh water, which the scuttle-butt is 

empty till Chips comes back and shifts the 

hand-pump.' 

'Never you mind the bloody covers,' said


Jack, suddenly so angry with extreme weariness 

that it cowed even Killick. 'You and Grimshaw 

jump forward to the cabin next the bosun's: 

get a bed from Mr Adams, sling a 

hammock, and lay him in it. And have his seachest 

lighted along, d'ye hear me, there?' 

Extreme weariness: it pervaded both ships, 

evening out the gloom of the defeated and the 

elation of the conquerors. Both sets of men 

would have resigned prize-money or freedom 

to be allowed to go below and take their 

ease. But it was not to be: the few able-bodied 

prisoners had to pump steadily to keep their 

ship clear, or haul on a rope at the word of 

command; and in both ships it was all hands 

on deck until enough canvas could be spread 

to allow them at least to lie to in something 

like safety if it came on to blow; for the glass 

was far from steady, and neither the midday 

nor the present evening sky was at all certain.


The only apparently idle hands in either ship 

were the medical men. They had returned to 

the frigate some time before; they had made 

the rounds of the sick-berth and its extensions 

and now they were waiting for a pause in the 

general activity, when someone would have 

time to pull Martin, who was to spend the 

night in the Franklin, across the lane of 

choppy water that separated the ships. Although 

both medicoes could row, after a fashion, 

neither could afford to have inept, clumsy 

fingers with so strong a likelihood of further 

surgery. 

They were watching the extraction of the 

Franklin's broken lower masts and their replacement 

by a jury-rig, and from time to time 

Stephen explained the various operations. 

'There, do you see,' he said, 'those two very 

long legs joining at the top with a pair of stout 

pulleys at the juncture and their feet resting on


planks either side of the deck, are the sheers I 

was speaking about. See, the men haul them 

upright by a rope, perhaps even a hawser, 

running through yet another pulley, or block 

as I should say, to the capstan; while at the 

same time any undue motion is restrained by 

the – Mr Reade, what is the name of those 

ropes fore and aft and sideways?' 

'Guys, sir; and those at the bottom of the 

sheers are tail-tackles.' 

'Thank you, my dear. Let me advise you not 

to run in that impetuous manner, however.' 

'Oh sir, if I did not run in this impetuous 

manner...' 

'Mr Reade, there. Have you gone to sleep 

again?' called Pullings, very hoarse, very savage. 

'Now, as you see, Martin, the sheers are 

quite upright: they let down the lower pulley –


the bosun attaches it to the broken mast by a 

certain knot – he bids them heave, or haul – 

he encourages them with cries – with blows. 

Those must be the idle prisoners. The stump 

rises – it is detached, cast off – they bring the 

new spar – I believe it is one of our spare topmasts 

– they make it fast – up it rises, up and 

up and up until it dangles over the very hole, 

the partners as the mariner calls it – and yet 

with the motion of the ship how it wanders! – 

Mr Bulkeley seizes it – he cries out – they 

lower away and the mast descends – it is firm, 

pinned no doubt and wedged. Someone – it is 

surely Barret Bonden – is hoisted to the trestletrees 

to place the rigging over the upper end 

in due order.' 

'If you please, sir,' said Emily, 'Padeen says 

may Willis have his slime-draught now?' 

'He may have it at the third stroke of the bell,' 

said Stephen. She ran off, her slim black form


weaving unnoticed through gangs of seamen 

intent upon a great variety of tasks, too weary 

to be jocular, and Stephen said, 'If one, then 

all; and we have mere chaos.' 

He had often said this before, and Martin 

only nodded. They watched in silence as the 

sheers moved forward to the stump of the 

Franklin's mainmast, fitting to it a curious object 

made up of yet another spare topmast 

and a hand-mast, the two coupled athwartships 

by two lower caps and a double upper 

cap above the refashioned maintop. 

Stephen did not attempt to explain the course 

of this particular operation, which he had 

never seen before. Until now neither had spoken 

of West's death apart from their brief exchange 

in the sick-berth, but during a short 

pause in the hammering behind them and the 

repeated shouts from the Franklin Stephen 

said, 'I am of opinion that there was such


damage to the brain that an even earlier, 

more skilful intervention would have made no 

difference.' 

'I am certain of it,' said Martin. 

'I wish I were,' thought Stephen. 'Yet then 

again, what is gratifying to self-love is not 

necessarily untrue.' 

The arduous fitting of the double cap went 

on and on: they watched in stupid, heavyheaded 

incomprehension. 

'Such news, sir,'cried Reade, flitting by. 'The 

Captain is going to send up a lateen on her 

mizen. What a sight that will be! It will not be 

long now.' 

The sun was nearly touching the horizon, and 

both over the water and in the Surprise the 

people could be seen coiling down and clearing 

away; the carpenters were collecting their 

tools; Stephen, sunk in melancholy thought,


recalled his motions with that singular clarity 

which comes with certain degrees of tiredness 

and in some dreams. He could feel the vibration 

of his trephine cutting through the injured 

skull, an operation he had carried out many, 

many times without failure, the raising of the 

disk of bone, the flow of extravasated blood. 

They were both far away in their reflexions 

and Stephen had almost forgotten that he was 

not alone when Martin, his eyes fixed on the 

prize, said, 'You understand these things better 

than I do, for sure: pray which do you think 

the better purchase for a man in my position 

and with my responsibilities, the Navy Fives or 

South Sea stock?' 

Stephen was called out only twice that night; 

and his third sleep was of the most delicious 

kind, changing, evolving, from something not 

unlike coma to a consciousness of total re-


laxation, of mental recovery and physical 

comfort; and so he lay, blinking in the early 

light and musing on a wide variety of pleasant 

things: Diana's kindness to him when he was 

ill in Sweden; goshawks he had known; a 

Boccherini 'cello sonata; whales. But a steady, 

familiar, discordant noise pierced through this 

amiable wandering: several times he dismissed 

his identification as absurd. He had 

known the Navy for many years; he was acquainted 

with its excesses; but this was too 

wild entirely. Yet at last the combination of 

sounds, grinding, scrubbing, bucket clashing, 

water streaming, swabs driving the tide into 

the scuppers, bare feet padding and hoarse 

whispers just over his head could no longer be 

denied: the larboard watch and the idlers 

were cleaning the deck, getting all the volcanic 

dust and cinders from under gratings, 

gun-carriages and such unlikely places as the


binnacle drawers. 

Yet as his conscious mind accepted this so 

yesterday came flooding back, and the extravagance 

of the sailors' activity disappeared. 

Mr West had died. He was to be buried at sea 

in the forenoon watch, and they were seeing 

to it that he should go over the side from a 

ship in tolerably good order. He was not an 

outstandingly popular officer; nor was he very 

clever, either, and sometimes he did tend to 

top it the knob, being more quarterdeck than 

tarpaulin; but he was not in the least illnatured 

– never had a man brought up before 

the Captain as a defaulter – and there was no 

question at all of his courage. He had distinguished 

himself when the Surprise cut the 

Diane out at St Martin's, while in this last affair 

at Moahu he had done everything a good, active 

officer could do. But above all they were 

used to him: they had sailed with him for a


great while now: they liked what they were 

used to; and they knew what was due to a 

shipmate. 

If there had been any danger of Stephen's 

forgetting, then the appearance of the deck 

when he came up into the sparkling open air 

and the brilliant light after his long morning 

round would have brought it all to mind. 

Quite apart from the fact that the waist of the 

ship, the part between the quarterdeck and the 

forecastle, where ordinarily he saw a mass of 

spare masts, yards and spars in general covered 

with tarpaulins on the booms, the boats 

nestling among them, was now quite clear, 

the spars nearly all used and the boats either 

busy or towing astern, which gave her a singular 

clean-run austerity – quite apart from this 

there had been an extraordinary change from 

the apparent confusion and real filth of yesterday 

to a Sunday neatness, falls flemished,


brass flaming in the sun, yards (such as there 

were) exactly squared by the lifts and braces. 

But there was an even greater change in the 

atmosphere, a formality and gravity shown at 

one end of the scale by Sarah and Emily, who 

had finished their duties in the sick-berth half 

an hour before and who were now standing 

on the forecastle in their best pinafores looking 

solemnly at the Franklin, and at the other 

by Jack Aubrey, who was returning from her in 

the splendour of a post-captain, accompanied 

by Martin and rowed with great exactness by 

his bargemen. 

'There, sir,' said Reade at Stephen's side. 'That 

is what I meant by a splendid sight.' 

Stephen followed his gaze beyond the Captain's 

boat to the Franklin. She had cast off her 

tow and she was sailing along abreast of the 

Surprise, making a creditable five knots under 

her courses, with the great triangular lateen


drum-taut on her mizen gleaming in the sun. 

'Very fine, indeed,' he said. 

'She reminds me of the old Victory,' observed 

Reade after a moment. 

'Surely to God the Victory has not been sunk, 

or sold out of the service?' asked Stephen, 

quite startled. 'I knew she was old, but thought 

her immortal, the great ark of the world.' 

'No, sir, no,' said Reade patiently. 'We saw 

her in the chops of the Channel, not two days 

out. What I mean is in ancient times, in the 

last age, before the war even, she used to 

have a mizen like that. We have a picture of 

her at home: my father was her second lieutenant 

at Toulon, you know. But come, sir, 

you will have to shift your coat or go below. 

The Captain will be aboard any minute now.' 

'Perhaps I should disappear,' said Stephen, 

passing a hand over his unshaven chin.


The Surprise, having checked her way, received 

her Captain with all the ceremony she 

could manage in her present state. The bosun's 

mates piped the side; Tom Pullings, acting 

as first lieutenant, Mr Grainger, the second, 

Mr Adams, the clerk and de facto purser, 

and both midshipmen, all in formal clothes, 

took off their hats; and the Captain touched 

his own to the quarterdeck. Then with a nod to 

Pullings he went below, where Killick, who had 

been watching his progress from the moment 

he left the Franklin, had a pot of coffee ready. 

Attracted by the smell, Stephen walked in, 

holding a sharpened razor in his hand; but 

perceiving that Jack and Pullings meant to talk 

about matters to do with the ship he drank 

only two cups and withdrew to the fore-cabin 

in which he usually had his being. Jack called 

after him 'As soon as Martin has changed his 

clothes, he will be on deck, you know,' and at


the same time Killick, whose never very amiable 

character had been soured still further by 

having to look after both Captain and Doctor 

for years and years, burst in at the forward 

door with Stephen's good coat over his arm. In 

a shrill, complaining voice he cried, 'What, 

ain't you even shaved yet? God love us, what 

a disgrace it will bring to the ship.' 

'Now Tom,' said Jack Aubrey, 'I will tell you 

very briefly how things are in the Franklin. 

Grainger and Bulkeley and the others have 

done most uncommonly well and we can send 

up topmasts tomorrow. I have been considering 

the prize-crew, and although we cannot 

spare many, I think we shall manage. She has 

twenty-one hands left fit to serve, and together 

with what the Doctor can patch up and three 

of the English ransomers and a carpenter they 

took out of a Hull whaler to replace their own 

she should be adequately manned without


weakening the Surprise too much. I mean they 

should be able to fight at least one side, not 

merely carry her into port. Most of the Franklins 

understood some English so I told them 

the usual things: those that saw fit to volunteer 

should berth with our own people on the 

lower deck, have full rations, grog and tobacco, 

and be paid off in South America according 

to their rating, while those that did not 

should be kept in the fore-hold on two-thirds 

rations, no grog and no tobacco and be carried 

back to England. One of the ransomers, 

a boy, spoke French as brisk as the Doctor, 

and what they did not understand from me 

they understood from him. I left them to think 

it over, and there is not much doubt about the 

result. When we have rearmed her with our 

carronades she will make an admirable consort. 

You shall have command of her, and I 

will promote Vidal here. We can certainly find


you three men capable of standing a watch: 

Mr Smith, for one, and he will stiffen their 

gunnery. And even if we were not so well supplied, 

two of the ransomers were mates of 

their ship, the one a fur-trader on the Nootka 

run, the other a whaler. Have you any observations, 

Captain Pullings?' 

'Well, sir,' said Pullings, returning his smile, 

but with a certain constraint, 'I take it very 

kindly that you should give me the command, 

of course. As for Vidal, he is a prime seaman, 

of course: there is no doubt of that. But he is 

the leader of the Knipperdollings, and the 

Knipperdollings and the Sethians have been at 

odds ever since the love-feast at the Methody 

chapel in Botany Bay. And as you know very 

well, sir, some of the most respected hands on 

board are Sethians or their close friends; and 

to have a Knipperdolling set over them...' 

'Hell and death, Tom,' said Jack. 'You are


quite right. It had slipped my mind.' 

It should not have slipped his mind. For although 

Shelmerston was well known for bold 

enterprising expert seamen – Vidal himself had 

armed a ship and cruised upon the Barbary 

corsairs themselves with remarkable success – 

it was even better known for its bewildering 

variety of religious sects, some, like the 

Sethians, with origins hazy in the remote past, 

some, like the Knipperdollings, quite recent 

but a little apt to be quarrelsome by land if a 

point of doctrine were raised; and at the lovefeast 

in Botany Bay a disagreement on the 

filioque clause had ended in many a black 

eye, many a bloody nose and broken head. 

Jack repressed some reflexions on seamen 

and theology, blue-light officers and tracts, 

and said, 'Very well. I shall rearrange the 

prize-crew. Peace at all costs. You shall have 

the Sethians and I shall bring back what Knip-


perdollings there may be in the Franklin. By 

the way, what is a Knipperdolling?' 

Pullings looked perfectly blank, and slowly 

shook his head. 

'Well, never mind. The Doctor will know, or 

even better Martin. I hear his voice on deck. 

They will start tolling the bell directly.'


THREE 

They buried West in 12° 35' N, 152° 17' W; 

and some days later his clothes, according to 

the custom of the sea, were sold at the mainmast. 

Henry Vidal, a master-mariner shipping as a 

forecastle-hand for this voyage, bought West's 

formal coat and breeches. He and his Knipperdolling 

friends removed all the lace and 

any ornament that could be taken for a mark 

of rank, and it was in these severe garments 

that he presented himself, on his promotion to 

acting second lieutenant, for his first dinner in 

the gunroom. 

For this occasion too Stephen dined below;


but the nature of the present feast was entirely 

different. For one thing the ship was still a 

great way from her settled routine; there was 

still a great deal to be done aboard the frigate 

and in the Franklin, and this could not be the 

leisurely ceremony with which Grainger had 

been welcomed. For another the atmosphere 

was much more like that of a civilian gathering, 

three of the eight people having nothing 

whatsoever to do with the Navy: at the foot of 

the table, on either side of Mr Adams, sat two 

ransomers, men taken from her prizes by the 

Franklin as security for the sum the ships had 

agreed to pay for their release; in Pullings' absence 

Grainger was at the head, with Stephen 

on his right and Vidal on his left, while in the 

middle of the table Martin sat opposite Dutourd, 

invited by Adams on a hint from the 

Captain. 

It was therefore much less of an ordeal for


Vidal: there was no intimidating gold lace; 

many of the people were as much strangers to 

the table as he was himself; and he was very 

well with his neighbours, Grainger, whom he 

had known from boyhood, and Dutourd, 

whom he found particularly sympathetic; while 

Dr Maturin, his shipmate in three commissions, 

was not a man to put a newcomer out 

of countenance. 

Indeed, after their first kindly welcome of the 

new officer there was no need for taking any 

special care of him: Vidal joined in the fine 

steady flow of talk, and presently Stephen, 

abandoning his social duties, as he so often 

did, confined himself to his dinner, his wine 

and to contemplating his messmates. 

The ransomers on either side of Adams, the 

one a supercargo and the other a merchant, 

both out of fur-traders, were still in the full joy 

of their liberation, and sometimes they


laughed for no reason whatsoever, while a 

joke such as 'What answer was given to him, 

that dissuaded one from marrying a wife because 

she was now wiser? 'I desire,' said he, 

'my wife should have no more wit, than to be 

able to distinguish my bed from another 

man's,'' threw them into convulsions. It was noticeable 

that they were both on good terms 

with Dutourd; and this did not seem to 

Stephen to be merely the result of their being 

set free, but a settled state of affairs. 

As for Dutourd himself, Stephen already knew 

him pretty well in his present condition, since 

Dutourd came every day to visit those Franklins 

who had been brought across to be cared 

for in the Surprise's capacious sick-berth. 

Stephen necessarily spoke French to these patients, 

and with such frequent contact it would 

have been childish to conceal his fluency. 

Dutourd for his part took it for granted and


made no comment, any more than Stephen 

took notice of Dutourd's English, remarkably 

exact and idiomatic, though occasionally 

marked by the nasal twang of the northern 

colonies, in which he had spent some early 

years. 

He was sitting there in the middle of the table, 

upright, buoyant, wearing a light-blue 

coat and his own hair, cropped in the Brutus 

fashion, talking away right and left, suiting 

himself to his company and apparently enjoying 

his dinner: yet he had lost everything, and 

that everything was sailing along under the lee 

of the Surprise, commanded by those who had 

taken him prisoner. Insensibility? Stoicism? 

Magnanimity? Stephen could not tell: but it 

was certainly not mere levity, for what Stephen 

did know was that Dutourd was a highly intelligent 

man with an enquiring not to say an inquisitive 

mind. He was now engaged in ex-


tracting an account of English municipal government 

from Vidal, his right-hand neighbour 

and Stephen's vis-à-vis. 

Vidal was a middle-aged seaman with much 

of the dignity that Stephen had often observed 

in those who were masters of their trade: yet 

apart from his earrings one would scarcely 

have taken him for a sailor. His face, though 

tanned mahogany, was more that of a goodnatured 

reading man and it would have been 

no surprise to see him reach for a pair of 

spectacles. He had the habitual gravity expected 

of an elder, but his expression was far 

from humourless; there was nothing of the 

Holy Joe about him and he was perfectly at 

home in a ribald, profane ship's company and 

in a bloody, close-fought action. He laughed 

at his messmates' mediaeval jokes, at the 

young men's occasional horseplay, and at the 

facetiousness of his cousin the bosun; but no


one, at any time, would have attempted to 

make game of him. 

Stephen's mind wandered away on the subject 

of authority, its nature, origin, base or 

bases: authority whether innate or acquired, 

and if acquired then by what means? Authority 

as opposed to mere power, how exactly to be 

defined? Its etymology : its relation to auctor. 

From these thoughts he was aroused by an 

expectant silence opposite him, and looking 

up he saw Dutourd and Vidal looking at him 

across the table, their forks poised: reaching 

back in his mind he caught the echo of a 

question: 'What do you think of democracy?' 

'The gentleman was asking what you thought 

of democracy, sir,' said Vidal, smiling. 

'Alas I cannot tell you, sir,' said Stephen, returning 

the smile. 'For although it would not 

be proper to call this barque or vessel a King's


ship except in the largest sense, we nevertheless 

adhere strictly to the naval tradition which 

forbids the discussion of religion, women, or 

politics in our mess. It has been objected that 

this rule makes for insipidity, which may be so; 

yet on the other hand it has its uses, since in 

this case for example it prevents any member 

from wounding any other gentleman present 

by saying that he did not think the policy that 

put Socrates to death and that left Athens 

prostrate was the highest expression of human 

wisdom, or by quoting Aristotle's definition of 

democracy as mob-rule, the depraved version 

of a commonwealth.' 

'Can you suggest a better system?' asked 

Dutourd. 

'Sir,' said Stephen, 'my words were those of 

some hypothetical person: where my own 

views are concerned, tradition seals my 

mouth. As I have told you, we do not discuss


politics at this table.' 

'Quite right too,' called out the merchant on 

Adams' left. 'If there is one thing I hate more 

than topics it is politics. Damn all talk of 

Whigs, Tories and Radicals, say I: and damn 

all topics too, like the state of the poor and 

slavery and reform. Let us talk about the enclosing 

of commons, annuities and South Sea 

stock, like this gentleman here, and how to 

make two groats where only one grew before, 

ha, ha!' He clapped Martin on the shoulder 

and repeated 'Two groats where only one 

grew before.' 

'I am very sorry to have offended against your 

tradition, gentlemen,' said Dutourd, recollecting 

himself, 'but I am no seaman, and I have 

never before had the honour of sitting down in 

an English officers' mess.' 

'A glass of wine with you, sir,' said Stephen,


bowing to him across the table. 

It had been foreseen that with so much work 

to do inboard and out the dinner would come 

to an early end; and once the cloth was drawn 

it moved on quickly to the loyal toast. 

'You understand, sir,' said Grainger to Dutourd 

in terms that he had prepared beforehand, 

'that those parties who have not the 

happiness of being his subjects are not required 

to drink the King.' 

'You are very good, sir,' replied Dutourd, 'but 

I am perfectly willing to drink to the gentleman's 

good health: God bless him.' 

Shortly after this the table emptied and 

Stephen and Martin took a turn on the quarterdeck 

until six bells, when they were invited 

to drink coffee with the Captain, who however 

hungry he might be was required by custom to 

dine later than anyone else. After the shadowy


gunroom the full day was almost intolerably 

bright, a blue day with white clouds sailing on 

the warm breeze, a white ripple on the small 

cross-seas, no marked roll or pitch. They 

paced up and down with their eyes narrowed 

until they became used to the brilliance; and 

Martin said, 'An odd, somewhat disturbing 

thing happened to me this morning. I was 

coming back from the Franklin when Johnson 

pointed out a bird, a small pale bird that overtook 

us, circled the boat and flew on: certainly 

a petrel and probably Hahnemann's. Yet although 

I watched it with a certain pleasure I 

suddenly realized that I did not really care. I 

did not mind what it was called.' 

'We have never yet seen Hahnemann's petrel.' 

'No. That was what made it so disturbing. I 

must not compare great things with small, but 

one hears of men losing their faith: waking up 

one morning and finding that they do not be-


lieve in the Creed they must recite to the congregation 

in a few hours' time.' 

'One does, too. And on a scale of infinitely 

less consequence but still distressing there was 

a cousin of mine in the County Down who 

found – one morning, just as you say – that he 

no longer loved the young woman to whom 

he had made an offer. She was the same 

young woman, with the same physical advantages 

and the same accomplishments; she 

had done nothing reprehensible; but he did 

not love her.' 

'What did the poor man do?' 

'He married her.' 

'Was the marriage happy?' 

'When you look about among your acquaintance 

do you find many happy marriages?' 

Martin considered. 'No,' he said, 'I do not. 

My own is very happy, however; and with that,'


nodding over the water at the prize, 'it is likely 

to be even happier. All the hands who have 

been on the Nootka run say she is extremely 

rich. And sometimes I wonder whether, with 

such a wife, a parish and the promise of preferment, 

I am justified in leading my present 

wandering life, delightful though it may be on 

such a day as this.' 

Six bells, and they hurried down the companion-ladder. 

'Come in, gentlemen, come in,' 

cried Jack. He was always a little over-cordial 

with Martin, whom he did not like very much 

and whom he did not invite as often as he felt 

he ought. Killick's arrival with the coffee and 

his mate's with little toasted slices of dried 

breadfruit masked the slight, the very slight, 

awkwardness and when they were all sitting 

comfortably, holding their little cups and gazing 

out of the sweep of windows that formed 

the aftermost wall of the great cabin, Jack


asked, 'What news of your instrument, Mr 

Martin?' 

The instrument in question was a viola, upon 

which, before it was broken, Martin played indifferently, 

having an uncertain ear and an 

imperfect sense of time. No one had expected 

to hear it again this voyage, or at least not until 

they touched at Callao; but the fortune of 

war had brought them a French repairer, a 

craftsman who had been sent to Louisiana for 

a variety of crimes, mostly crapulous, and 

who, escaping from bondage, had joined the 

Franklin. 

'Gourin says that Mr Bentley has promised 

him a piece of lignum vitae as soon as he has 

a moment to spare: then it will be only half a 

day's work, and time for the glue to dry.' 

'I am so glad,' said Jack. 'We must have 

some more music one of these days. There is


another thing I wanted to ask, for you know a 

great deal about the various religious persuasions, 

as I recall?' 

'I should, sir, because in the days when I was 

only an unbeneficed clergyman,' said Martin, 

with a bow towards his patron, 'I translated the 

whole of Muller's great book, wrote my version 

out again in a fair copy, saw it through the 

press and corrected two sets of proofs; every 

word I read five times, and some very curious 

sects did I come across. There were the Ascitants, 

for example, who used to dance round 

an inflated wine-skin.' 

'The people I should like to know about are 

Knipperdollings.' 

'Our Knipperdollings?' 

'Oh, Knipperdollings in general: I do not 

mean anything personal.' 

'Well, sir, historically they were the followers


of Bernhard Knipperdolling, one of those Miinster 

Anabaptists who went to such very illconsidered 

lengths, enforcing equality and the 

community of goods and then going on to polygamy 

– John of Leiden had four wives at a 

time, one of them being Knipperdolling's 

daughter – and I am afraid that even worse 

disorders followed. Yet I think they left little in 

the way of doctrinal posterity, unless they can 

be said to live on in the Socinians and Mennonites, 

which few would accept. Those who 

use the name at present are descendants of 

the Levellers. The Levellers, as you will recall, 

sir, were a party with strong republican views 

in the Civil War; they wished to level all differences 

of rank, reducing the nation to an 

equality; and some of them wanted land to be 

held in common – no private ownership of 

land. They were very troublesome in the army 

and the state; they earned a thoroughly bad


name and eventually they were put down, 

leaving only a few scattered communities. I 

believe the Levellers as a body did not have a 

religious as opposed to a social or political 

unity, though I cannot think that any of them 

belonged to the Established Church; yet some 

of these remaining communities formed a sect 

with strange notions of the Trinity and a dislike 

of infant baptism; and to avoid the odium attached 

to the name of Levellers and indeed 

the persecution they called themselves Knipperdollings, 

thinking that more respectable or 

at least more obscure. I imagine they knew 

very little of the Knipperdollings' religious 

teaching but had retained a traditional knowledge 

of their notions of social justice, which 

made them think the name appropriate.' 

'It is remarkable,' observed Stephen after a 

pause, 'that the Surprise, with her many sects, 

should be such a peaceful ship. To be sure,


there was that slight want of harmony between 

the Sethians and the Knipperdollings at Botany 

Bay – and in passing I may once more point 

out, sir, that if this vessel supplied her people 

with round rather than square plates, these 

differences would be slighter still; for you are 

to consider that a square plate has four corners, 

each one of which makes it more than a 

mere contunding instrument.' He perceived 

from the civil inclinations of Captain Aubrey's 

head and the reserved expression on his face 

that the square plates issued to the Surprise 

when she was captured from the French in 

1796 would retain their lethal corners as long 

as he or any other right-minded sea-officer 

commanded her: the Royal Navy's traditions 

were not to be changed for the sake of a few 

broken heads. Stephen continued '... but generally 

speaking there is no discord at all; 

whereas very often the least difference of opin-


ion leads to downright hatred.' 

'That may be because they tend to leave their 

particular observances on shore,' said Martin. 

'The Thraskites are a Judaizing body and they 

would recoil from a ham at Shelmerston, but 

here they eat up their salt pork, aye, and fresh 

too when they can get it. And then when we 

rig church on Sundays they and all the others 

sing the Anglican psalms and hymns with 

great good will.' 

'For my own part,' said Captain Aubrey, 'I 

have no notion of disliking a man for his beliefs, 

above all if he was born with them. I find 

I can get along very well with Jews or even...' 

The P of Papists was already formed, and the 

word was obliged to come out as Pindoos. 

Yet it had hardly fallen upon Stephen's ear 

before a shriek and the crash of glass expelled 

embarrassment: young Arthur Wedell, a ran-


somer of Reade's age, who lived and messed 

in the midshipmen's berth, fell through the skylight 

into the cabin. 

Reade had been deprived of youthful company 

for a great while, and although he was 

often invited to the gunroom and the cabin he 

missed it sorely: at first Norton, though a great 

big fellow for his age, had been too bashful to 

be much of a companion in the berth, but 

now that Arthur had been added to them his 

shyness wore away entirely and the three 

made enough noise for thirty, laughing and 

hooting far into the night, playing cricket on 

the 'tween-decks when the hammocks were 

out of the way or football in the vacant larboard 

berth when they were not; but this was 

the first time they had ever hurled one of their 

number into the cabin. 

'Mr Grainger,' said Jack, when it had been 

found that Wedell was not materially injured


and when the lieutenant had been summoned 

from the head, 'Mr Wedell will jump up to the 

mizen masthead immediately, Mr Norton to 

the fore, and you will have Mr Reade whipped 

up to the main. They will stay there until I call 

them down. Pass the word for the carpenter; 

or for my joiner, if Mr Bentley is not in the 

way.' 

'I have rarely known such delightful weather 

in what we must, I suppose, call the torrid 

zone,' said Stephen, dining as usual in the 

cabin. 'Balmy zephyrs, a placid ocean, two 

certain Hahnemann's petrels, and perhaps a 

third.' 

'It would be all very capital for a picnic with 

ladies on a lake, particularly if they shared 

your passion for singular birds; but I tell you, 

Stephen, that these balmy zephyrs of yours 

have not propelled the ship seventy sea-miles 

between noon and noon these last four days.


It is true that we could get along a little faster 

ourselves, but clearly we cannot leave the 

Franklin behind; and with her present rig she 

is but a dull sailer.' 

'I noticed that you have changed her elegant 

great triangular sail behind.' 

'Yes. Now that we are making progess with 

her lower masts we can no longer afford that 

very long lateen yard: we need it for pole topgallants. 

Presently you will see that twin jury 

mainmast of hers replaced by something less 

horrible made up from everything you can 

imagine by Mr Bentley and that valuable carpenter 

we rescued: upper-tree, side-trees, 

heel-pieces, side-fishes, cheeks, front-fish and 

cant-pieces, all scarfed, coaked, bolted, 

hooped and woolded together; it will be a 

wonderful sight when it is finished, as solid as 

the Ark of the Covenant. Then with that in 

place, and the respectable fore and mizen we


already possess, we can send up topmasts 

and the pole topgallants I was telling you 

about. That will be best of what breeze there 

is. How I long to see her royals! I have sworn 

not to touch my fiddle until they are set.' 

'You are in a great hurry to reach Peru, I 

find.' 

'Of course I am. So would you be, could you 

see our bread-room, our spirit-room, reckon 

up our water and count our pork and beef 

casks, with all these new hands aboard. 

Above all our water. We had no time to fill at 

Moahu, or the Franklin would have run clear. 

And she having pumped all hers over the side, 

we are now in a sad way. There is only one 

thing for it: no fresh water will be allowed for 

washing clothes or anything else: only a small 

ration for drinking – no scuttle-butts standing 

about – and a minimum for the steep-tubs to 

get what salt off the pork and beef that towing


them in a net over the side won't do.' 

'But since we can go so much faster, could 

you not give the Franklin a modicum, sail 

briskly on and let her follow? After all, Tom 

found his way here: he could surely find it 

back.' 

'What a fellow you are, Stephen. My whole 

plan is to arm her with our carronades and 

cruise in company, snapping up what China 

ships, whalers and fur-traders may appear, 

then to send Surprise in to Callao with, I hope, 

a captured ship or two so that they can be 

disposed of there and you can go ashore. 

Tom will be in command – they are used to 

him in Callao because of the prizes he took 

on the way out – and the barky will go on topping 

it the privateer. And while you are looking 

after your affairs and Tom is victualling, 

watering and getting in stores, I shall cruise 

alone offshore, sending in captures from time


to time or at all events a boat. But without we 

spread more canvas we shall never get there 

before we die of thirst and starvation: that is 

why I am so eager to see the Franklin fully 

masted and looking like a Christian ship at 

last, instead of a God-damned curiosity.' 

'So am I, upon my word,' said Stephen, thinking 

of his coca-leaves. 'I can hardly wait.' 

'Possess yourself in patience for a day or two, 

and you will see her set her royals. Then that 

evening we shall have a concert – we may 

even sing!' 

At the time Stephen wondered that Jack 

should speak so thoughtlessly, tempting a Fate 

that he almost always placated with a perhaps 

or if we are lucky or tide and weather permitting; 

and Stephen being by now a thoroughgoing 

seaman at least as far as weak superstition 

was concerned he was more grieved than


surprised when a top-maul fell upon Mr Bentley's 

foot early the next morning. The wound 

was not dangerous but it confined the carpenter 

to his cot for a while and in the mean time 

his crew, most unhappily, fell out with the carpenter 

from the Franklin. The privateer had 

taken him from a Hull whaler and he spoke a 

Yorkshire dialect almost entirely incomprehensible 

to the west-country hands from 

Shelmerston, who looked upon him with dislike 

and suspicion as little better than a foreigner, 

a French dog or a Turk. 

Work therefore went forward slowly, and not 

only work on the mast but the innumerable 

tasks that waited on its erection; and with an 

equal or even greater deliberation the two 

ships moved over the quiet sea through this 

perfect picnic weather. In spite of his eagerness 

to be in South America it pleased 

Stephen, who spread himself naked in the sun


and even swam with Jack in the mornings: it 

pleased most of the people, who could devote 

themselves to a detailed reckoning of the 

Franklin's worth and the value of the goods 

she had taken out of her various prizes and 

dividing the total according to each man's 

share; and it would have pleased the midshipmen 

if the Captain had not come down 

on them like a thousand of bricks. Football 

was abolished, cricket prohibited, and they 

were kept strictly to their duty, taking altitudes 

right and left, showing up their day's working 

(which rarely amounted to fifty miles of course 

made good) and writing their journals neat 

and fair. No blots were allowed, and a mistaken 

logarithm meant no supper: they walked 

about barefoot or in list slippers, rarely speaking 

above a whisper. 

During this time Stephen often went forward 

to Mr Bentley's cabin to dress and poultice his


poor foot, and on these occasions he sometimes 

heard Dutourd, whose quarters were 

close at hand, talking to his neighbour the bosun 

or to the visiting Grainger or Vidal: quite 

frequently to more, most of them forecastlemen 

during their watch below. Stephen did 

not listen particularly but he did notice that 

when Dutourd was speaking to one or two his 

voice was that of ordinary human conversation 

– rather better in fact, since he was unusually 

good company – but that when several 

were present he tended to address them in a 

booming tone and to go on and on. They did 

not seem to dislike it, though there was little 

new to be said about equality, the brotherhood 

of man, the innate goodness and wisdom 

of human nature unoppressed; but then, 

he reflected, Dutourd's hearers, Knipperdollings 

for the most part, were accustomed to 

much longer discourses at home.


Mr Bentley's innate wisdom told him that if he 

remained in the Doctor's list much longer the 

newcomer would get the credit for the Franklin's 

mainmast, now nearing completion in 

spite of doggedness on the part of the carpenter's 

crew, and this, though he was a good 

and benevolent man, he could not bear. In 

spite of the pain he crossed to the prize the 

morning the last of the Franklin's casualties 

were buried. The privateer's company had not 

been together long enough to form a united 

crew and the dead went over the side with little 

ceremony and less mourning, though in the 

general indifference Dutourd did say a few 

words, received with approving nods by his 

former shipmates before they went back to 

work: they had all volunteered to serve as 

temporary Surprises, mainly, it was thought, 

for the sake of the tobacco. 

Mr Bentley was only just in time. The Captain


had already gone aboard the Franklin, meaning 

to take advantage of the calm sea to carry 

out the delicate manoeuvre of getting the new 

mast in by the old, the composite old; for by 

now neither ship could provide adequate 

sheers. With propitious weather, an eager and 

highly competent skipper and an eager and 

highly competent first lieutenant, both of them 

capable of hard-horse driving, there was certainly 

not going to be any leisure for mocking 

at a Yorkshire word: there was not indeed going 

to be loss of a single minute, and the carpenter 

heaved himself up the side, limping to 

his place by the new mainmast's heel. 

Nearly all the Surprise's hands were aboard 

the prize, prepared to haul, heave, or gather 

up the wreckage in the by no means improbable 

event of accident, and it was Stephen 

who rowed Bentley across in his little skiff: a 

frightening experience. Having delivered the


carpenter, he brought Martin back. The medical 

men had no place on the crowded, busy, 

anxious deck: ropes ran in every direction, 

and wherever they stood they were liable to be 

in the way: in any case since those Franklins 

who had been left in the ship were now either 

healed or buried, Martin's duty there was at an 

end. 

The frigate's cook, a fine great black man 

with one leg, and a bearded Thraskite helped 

them up the side, Martin carrying his mended 

viola; and leaving the boat to more skilful 

hands the medicoes leaned on the rail for a 

while, watching the operations over the water. 

'I wish I could explain what they are about,' 

said Stephen, 'but this is so much more complex 

than the business with the sheers that with 

your own limited command of the seamen's 

language you might not be able to follow me. 

Indeed, I might even lead you into error.'


'How quiet it is,' said Martin. Uncommonly 

quiet: a gentle heave and set, the yards and 

rigging answering each with a murmur; but no 

break and run of water, no singing of the 

breeze, and scarcely a word from the few 

hands aboard, grouped on the forecastle and 

gazing steadily at the Franklin. 

'So quiet,' said Stephen some minutes later, 

'that I believe I shall take advantage of it to 

write in peace for a while. There will soon be 

a stamping as of wild beasts and cries of belay, 

avast, and masthead, there.' 

My dearest Soul, he wrote, continuing 

an unfinished sheet, I have just ferried 

Nathaniel Martin back, and I am afraid 

he regrets his return. He was happier 

messing along with Tom Pullings in the 

prize, and on the few occasions when 

he had come back to help me or to at-


tend a particular dinner I have noticed 

that he has seemed more ill at ease in 

the gunroom than he was before. We 

now have added to our company one 

of the ransomer mates, recently discharged 

from the sick-berth, and the 

loud-voiced confident mirth of the supercargo, 

the merchant and this mate 

oppresses him; nor can it be said that 

the conversation of our two actinglieutenants 

is enlivening: both are eminently 

respectable men, but neither has 

enough experience of this kind of mess 

to keep the ransomers in order, so that 

in Tom's absence the place is more like 

the ordinary of an inferior Portsmouth 

tavern than the gunroom of a man-ofwar. 

The officers quite often invite Dutourd, 

and he does impose a certain respect; 

but unhappily he is a great talker


and in spite of some tolerably emphatic 

checks he will drift towards philosophic 

considerations bordering upon politics 

and religion, the politics being of the 

Utopian pantisocratic kind and the religion 

a sort of misty Deism, both of which 

distress Martin. The poor fellow regrets 

Dutourd's absence and dreads his presence. 

I hope that our meals (and it is 

wonderful how long one spends at table, 

cooped up with the other members 

of the mess: it seems longer when some 

members belch, fart and scratch themselves) 

will become more tolerable 

when Tom returns, for I imagine the 

prize will be sold on the coast, and 

when Jack regularly dines with us. 

Yet even in that case I do not think 

Martin's is likely to be an enviable lot. In 

this ship there was always a prejudice


against him as a cleric, an unlucky man 

to have aboard; and now that it is 

known he is a parson in fact, the rector 

of two of Jack's livings, the prejudice 

has grown. Then again, as a man of 

some learning, acquainted with Hebrew, 

Greek and Latin, he is awkward 

company for our sectaries: in the event 

of a theological disagreement, a differing 

interpretation of the original, they 

carry no guns at all. And of course by 

definition he is opposed to Dissent and 

favourable to episcopacy and tithes; as 

well as to infant baptism, abhorrent to 

many of our shipmates. At the same 

time, being a quiet, introspective man, 

he completely lacks the ebullient bonhomie 

that comes so naturally to Dutourd. 

It is acknowledged aboard that he 

is a good man, kind as a surgeon's


mate, and in former commissions as a 

letter – or petition-writer (now there is 

little occasion for either and our few illiterates 

usually go to Mr Adams). But 

he is not cordially liked. He has been 

poor, miserably and visibly poor; now 

he is by lower-deck standards rich; and 

some suspect him of being overelevated. 

But more than this it is known 

– in a ship everything is known after the 

first few thousand miles – that the Captain 

is not very fond of him; and at sea 

a captain's opinion is as important to his 

crew as that of an absolute monarch to 

his court. It is not that Jack has ever 

treated him with the least disrespect, but 

Martin's presence is a constraint upon 

him; they have little to say to one another; 

and in short Martin has not accomplished 

the feat of making a friend


of his friend's closest associate. The attempt 

is rarely successful, I believe, and 

perhaps Martin never even ventured 

upon it. However that may be, they are 

not friends, and this means that he is 

looked upon by the people with less 

consideration than I think he deserves. It 

surprises me: I must say that I thought 

they would have used him better. Perhaps, 

as far as many of the ship's present 

crew are concerned, it is to some 

degree a question of these wretched 

tithes, which so many of them resent: 

and he is now one of those who receive 

or who will receive the hated impost. 

In any event, I am afraid he is losing 

his taste for life. His pleasure in birds 

and marine creatures has deserted him; 

and an educated man who takes no delight 

in natural philosophy has no place


in a ship, unless he is a sailor. 

Yet I remember him in earlier commissions, 

in much the same circumstances, 

rejoicing in the distant whale, the stinkpot 

petrel, his face aglow and his one 

eye sparkling with satisfaction. He was 

quite penniless then, apart from his 

miserable pay; and at those times when 

cause and effect seem childishly evident 

I am inclined to blame his prosperity. 

He now possesses, but has never enjoyed, 

two livings and what might be 

called a fair provision in prize-money: 

from a worldly point of view he is a 

much more considerable man than he 

ever has been before; although this 

makes no difference to his importance 

aboard it will do so by land, and I think 

it likely that he exaggerates the happiness 

which ease and consequence may


bring – that he pines for the shore – 

and its compensation for the disappointments 

he has suffered at sea. I 

have disappointed him, I am afraid, 

and... 

Stephen held his pen in the air, reflecting 

upon Clarissa Oakes, a young woman to 

whom he was much attached, a convict transported 

for murder, who, escaping, had sailed 

in the frigate from Sydney Cove to Moahu. He 

reflected upon her, smiling, and then upon 

Martin's ambiguous relations with her, which 

might also have had a deep influence on the 

people's attitude. If a parson sinned (and 

Stephen was by no means convinced of it), his 

sin was multiplied by every sermon he 

preached.


...so have other people, including no 

doubt himself. Yet like so many poor 

men he almost certainly mistakes the effect 

of wealth upon happiness in anything 

but the first fine flush of possession: 

he speaks of money very much 

more often than he did, more often than 

is quite agreeable; and the other day, 

referring to his marriage, which is as 

nearly ideal as can be, he was so 

thoughtless as to say that it would be 

even happier with his share of our current 

prize. 

Stephen paused again, and in the silence of 

the ship he heard Martin playing his viola in 

his cabin opening off the gunroom: an ascending 

scale, true enough, then coming 

down, slower, more hesitant and ending in a 

prolonged, slightly false, B flat, infinitely sad.


I do not have to tell you, my dear, he 

went on, that although I speak in this 

high ascetic way about money, I do not, 

never have, despise a competence: it is 

the relation of superfluity to happiness 

that is my text, and I am holier than 

thou only after two hundred pounds a 

year. 

The viola had stopped, and Stephen, locking 

away his paper, walked into the great cabin, 

stretched out on the cushioned stern-window 

locker, gazed for a while at the reflected 

sunlight dancing overhead, and went to sleep. 

He was woken, as long use had told him he 

would be woken, by a trampling as of wild 

beasts as the Surprise's boats were hoisted in: 

hoarse cries – Oh you impotent booby – the 

shrilling of the bosun's call – the clash of tack-


les run up chock-a-block – Handsomely, 

handsomely now, our William (Grainger to an 

impetuous young nephew) – but then instead 

of the usual cries of avast and belay an unexpected 

unanimous good-natured cheer, accompanied 

by laughter. 'What can this signify?' 

he asked himself, and while he was 

searching for a plausible sea-going answer he 

became aware of a presence in the cabin, a 

suppressed giggle. It was Emily and Sarah, 

standing neatly side by side in white pinafores. 

'We have been standing here a great while, 

sir,' said Sarah, 'whilst you was acontemplating. 

The Captain says, should you 

like to see a marble?' 

'Wonder,' said Emily. 

'Marble,' said Sarah, adding, 'You impotent 

booby' in a whisper. 

'There you are, Doctor,' cried the Captain as


Stephen came on deck, still looking rather 

stupid. 'Have you been asleep?' 

'Not at all,' said Stephen, 'I very rarely sleep.' 

'Well, if you had been asleep, here is a sight 

that would wake you even if you were a Letter 

to the Ephesians. Look over the leeward quarter. 

The leeward quarter.' 

'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' cried Stephen, recognizing 

the Franklin at last. 'What a transformation! 

She has three tall Christian masts and 

a vast great number of sails-what splendour in 

the sun! Sails of every kind, I make no doubt, 

including topgallant-royals.' 

'Exactly so, ha, ha, ha! I never thought it 

could have been done in the time. She spread 

them not five minutes ago, and already she 

has gained on us a cable's length. A neat little 

craft, upon my word. We shall have to set our 

own. Mr Grainger' – in a louder voice – 'I be-


lieve we must show her our royals.' 

The Surprise's royals, which were set flying, 

had already been bent to their yards, with the 

halliards hitched to the slings and the starboard 

arm stopped to them, the hands fidgeting 

to be at it; but no man laid a finger on a 

rope until Mr Grainger called, 'Now then, our 

George, haul away,'and the long slim yards 

fairly shot up through the rigging, up and up, 

threading lengthways through a cat's-cradle of 

cordage, up to the masthead, where the light 

and nimble Abraham Dorkin cut the small stuff 

stopping the yard to the halliards, swung it on 

to the horizontal plane of the topgallant yard, 

fixed it there with a becket, lashed the clews of 

the sails, its lower corners, to the topgallant 

yardarm, cast off the beckets, and cried, 'Wayoh!' 

His cry almost exactly coincided with others 

from the fore and mizen mastheads, and the


royals flashed out at the same moment, filling 

at once to the gentle breeze. The Surprises 

cheered; from over the water the weary Franklins 

did the same; and Jack turned a beaming 

face to Stephen, his eyes more startlingly blue 

than ever. 'Ain't that capital?' he cried. 'Now 

we can have our concert at last.' 

'Very capital indeed, upon my soul,' said 

Stephen, wondering why they were all so delighted. 

Certainly the ships, particularly the 

Franklin, were more beautiful by far with their 

towering clouds of ordered whiteness reducing 

their hulls to low slim elegant forms: and as he 

watched the sun lit the Franklin with more than 

common force, causing all the staysails to 

make strong exactly-curved shadows on the 

square courses, topsails and topgallants behind 

them. Very fine indeed, and perhaps 

there was a just-perceptible increase in their 

gentle pace, a very slightly greater lean from


the breeze. 

'Mr Reade,' called Jack, 'pray heave the log.' 

'Aye aye, sir: heave the log it is,' replied 

Reade, all duty and submission still. The usual 

ceremony followed: the log-ship splashed over 

the leeward quarter, went astern at a walking 

pace until it was free of what mild eddies the 

Surprise might make, watched with the closest 

attention by all hands. The moment the bunting 

that marked the end of the stray-line went 

over the rail Reade cried 'Turn,' and Norton 

turned the twenty-eight-second sand-glass, 

holding it close to his eye. As the last grain fell 

he bawled 'Stop' and Reade nipped the line a 

little after the second knot had passed. The 

quartermaster holding the log reel gave the 

line a tweak, dislodging a pin so that the logship 

floated sideways, and wound it in. Reade 

measured the distance between his nip and 

the second knot with a knowing eye: 'Two


knots and a trifle better than one fathom, sir, if 

you please,' he reported, bareheaded, to the 

Captain. 

'Thank you, Mr Reade,' said Jack, and to 

Stephen, 'There, Doctor: ain't you amazed? 

Two knots and a little more than a fathom!' 

'Profoundly amazed; yet I seem to remember 

having gone even faster.' 

'Why God love you, of course you have,' 

cried Jack. 'It is not the absolute speed that I 

am talking about but the relative speed, the 

speed in this miserable zephyr of yours. Good 

Lord, if we can both make better than two 

knots in an air that would scarcely bend a 

candle-flame, there is precious little can escape 

us, without it has wings or carries seventy-four 

guns.' 

'Hear him, hear him,' said somebody in the 

waist of the ship, and both helmsmen and


quartermaster chuckled. 

'To be sure, there is always the joy of the 

chase,' said Stephen with what enthusiasm he 

could command; and after a pause in which 

he felt he had been disappointing he said, 'For 

our concert, now, have you anything particular 

in mind?' 

'Oh, old favourites, for sure,' said Jack. 'I remember 

your telling me long ago, when we 

were beating out of Port Mahon in the Sophie, 

that in Spain they had a saying 'Let no new 

thing arise'. I thought at the time it might do 

very well for the Navy; and I am not so sure 

there is not something to be said for it in music.' 

It was a very old favourite they began with 

that evening, Benda's violin and 'cello duet in 

C minor, and they played it unusually well. 

There is a great deal to be said for a steady


deck under a 'cello: a great deal to be said for 

a cheerful heart behind a fiddle: and they 

would have brought it to an unusually handsome 

close if Killick had not blundered in, 

tripping over a little stool, unseen because of 

his tray, and saving their supper only by a 

miracle of juggling. 

At one time this supper had consisted of 

toasted cheese held in a remarkably elegant 

piece of Irish silver, a covered outer dish that 

held six within it, the whole kept warm over a 

spirit-stove: the dish was still present, gleaming 

with a noble brilliance, but it held only a 

pap made of pounded biscuit, a little goat's 

milk, and even less of rock-hard cheese-rind 

rasped over the top and browned with a loggerhead, 

so that some faint odour of cheddar 

could still just be made out. 

Jack Aubrey weighed sixteen or seventeen 

stone, Stephen barely nine, and to avoid the


tedium of self-sacrifice, protests against the 

sacrifice, and privy maundering afterwards it 

had long been agreed that they should share 

accordingly: finishing his fourth dish, therefore, 

Jack also finished his explanation of the 

remarkable sailing qualities of both the Franklin 

and the Surprise: '... so as I say, although 

at present we have the current setting against 

us, I believe I can promise we shall make as 

much of what breeze there is as any two ships 

afloat: from the look of the sky and the glass I 

should not be astonished if we achieved five 

knots tomorrow. And then, you know, as we 

slant down towards the equator, there is the 

counter-current in our favour.' 

'So much the better,' said Stephen. 'Now what 

do you say to our Boccherini in D major? The 

minuet has been running in my head these last 

two or three days; but we have still to work out 

the adagio.'


'I should like it of all things,' said Jack. 'Killick. 

Killick, there. Clear the decks and bring another 

decanter of port.' 

'Which it is getting wery low, sir,' said Killick. 

'At this rate we shall have to rouse up your 

feast-day eighty-nine, or be satisfied with 

grog.' 

'Rouse it up, Killick: let us live whilst we are 

alive.' When Killick was gone, looking pinched 

and disapproving, Jack went on. 'That reminds 

me of Clarissa Oakes. She said something of 

the same kind in Latin, you told me, and translated 

it for her husband. Lord, Stephen, that 

was a fine young woman. How shamefully I 

lusted after her: but it would not do, of course, 

not in my own ship. And I believe poor Martin 

was much smitten. Sheep's eyes were not in it. 

However, I do so hope she will be happy with 

Oakes. He was not perhaps quite up to her 

mark, but he was a tolerable seaman.'


'Little do I know of port wine,' said Stephen. 

'Was eighty-nine an uncommon year?' 

'Pretty good,' said Jack, 'but I love it because 

of its associations. I never drink it without 

thinking of the Spanish Disturbance.' 

'My dear, you have the advantage of me.' 

'Really? Well, I am amazingly glad to know 

something you do not. It had to do with 

Nootka Sound, the place where the fur-traders 

go. Captain Cook, that great man, discovered 

it during his last voyage, when he was running 

up the north-west coast of America; and our 

people had been trading there and to the 

northwards for years and years when all at 

once the Spaniards said it was a continuation 

of California and therefore Spanish. They sent 

up a twenty-six-gun frigate from Mexico and 

seized the English ships and the settlement. It 

made a great noise when the news reached


home, above all as we had not long since 

been beaten in America; people were furiously 

angry – my cousin Edward stood up in Parliament 

beside himself with rage and said England 

was going to the dogs and the House 

cheered him – and when the Spaniards would 

not listen to reason the Ministry began hurrying 

ships out of ordinary, manning them with 

a hot press, and laying down new ones. Lord, 

we were so happy, we sailors turned ashore 

after the American disaster! One day I was 

only a wretched master's mate with no half 

pay, glum, blue, hipped, sitting on the beach 

and adding salt tears to the bitter flood, and 

the next I was Lieutenant Aubrey, fifth of the 

Queen, covered with glory and gold lace, or 

at least as much as I could get on credit. It 

was a wonderful stroke of luck for me; and for 

the country too.' 

'Who could deny it?'


'I mean it was wonderfully well timed, since it 

meant we had a well-manned, well-equipped 

Navy to cope with the French when they declared 

war on us a little later. Bless the Spanish 

Disturbance.' 

'By all means. But, Jack, I could have sworn 

your commission was dated 1792. Sophie 

showed it to me with such pride. Yet our wine 

is 1789.' 

'Of course it is. That was when the Disturbance 

started – the very beginning, when 

those wicked dogs seized our ships. The talking 

and the rearmament went on until ninetytwo, 

when the Spaniards pulled in their horns 

as they did over the Falklands some time before. 

But it all began in eighty-nine. A precious 

date for me: a wonderful year and I had great 

hopes of it as soon as the news came home.' 

He paused for a while, sipping his port and 

smiling at his recollections; then he said 'Tell


me, Stephen, what were you doing in eightynine?' 

'Oh,' said Stephen vaguely, 'I was studying 

medicine.' With this he set down his glass and 

walked into the quarter-gallery. He had been 

studying medicine, it was true, walking the 

wards of the Hôtel-Dieu, but he had also 

spent a great deal of the time running about 

the streets of Paris in the headiest state of 

happy excitement that could be imagined, or 

rather exaltation, in the dawn of the Revolution, 

when every disinterested, generous idea 

of freedom seemed on the point of realization, 

the dawn of an infinitely finer age. 

When he came back he found Jack arranging 

the score of their next duet on their music 

stands. Like many other heavy men Jack could 

be as sensitive as a cat on occasion: he knew 

that he had touched on some painful area – 

that in any case Stephen hated questions –


and he was particularly attentive in laying out 

the sheets, pouring Stephen another glass of 

wine, and, when they began, in so playing 

that his violin helped the 'cello, yielding to it in 

those minute ways perceptible to those who 

are deep in their music if to few others. 

They played on, and only once did Jack raise 

his head from the score: the ship was leaning 

half a strake, and beneath their strings the 

sound of the rigging could just be heard. At 

the end of the allegro he said, turning the 

page with his bow, 'She is making four knots.' 

'I believe we may attack the adagio directly,' 

said Stephen. 'The wind is in our poop, and 

we have never played better.' 

They swept into the next movement, the 'cello 

booming nobly, and carried straight on without 

a pause, separating, joining, answering 

one another, with never a hesitation nor a


false note until the full satisfaction of the end. 

'Well done, well done,' said Dutourd: he and 

Martin were standing in the warm darkness 

abaft the lit companion, alone on the quarterdeck 

apart from Grainger and the men at the 

wheel. 'I had no idea they could play so well – 

no contention, no striving for pre-eminence – 

pray which is the 'cello?' 

'Dr Maturin.' 

'And Captain Aubrey the violin, of course: 

admirable tone, admirable bowing.' 

Martin did not care for Dutourd in the gunroom: 

he thought that the Frenchman talked 

far too much, that he tended to harangue the 

company, and that his ideas though no doubt 

well-intended were pernicious. But en tête-àtête 

Dutourd was an agreeable companion 

and Martin quite often took a turn on deck 

with him. 'You play yourself, sir, I collect?' he


said. 

'Yes. I may be said to play. I am not of the 

Captain's standard, but with some practice I 

believe I could play second fiddle to him without 

too much discredit.' 

'Have you a violin with you?' 

'Yes, yes. It is in my sea-chest. The man who 

repaired your viola renewed the pegs just before 

we set off from Molokai. Do you often 

play in the cabin?' 

'I have done so, though I am an indifferent 

performer. I have taken part in quartets.' 

'Quartets! What joy! That is living in the very 

heart of music.'


FOUR 

The next morning Jack Aubrey came up from 

a conference, a pursers' conference with Mr 

Adams: Jack, like Cook and many a farranging 

captain before him, was nominally his 

own purser, just as Adams was nominally the 

captain's clerk; but by dividing the work between 

them they accomplished both it and 

their own specific duties quite well, particularly 

as the anomalous status of the Surprise meant 

that her accounts would never have to pass 

the slow, circumspect eyes of the Victualling 

Office, for whom all persons in charge of His 

Majesty's stores were guilty of embezzlement 

until with countersigned dockets of every con-


ceivable nature they could prove their innocence. 

At this conference they had weighed a 

number of sacks of dried peas, and Jack, taking 

advantage of the steelyard hanging from a 

convenient beam, had also weighed himself: 

to his shame he found that he had put on half 

a stone, and he meant to walk it off as soon 

as possible. He wished to hear no more flings 

about obesity, no more facetious remarks 

about letting out his waistcoats, no grave professional 

warnings about the price big heavy 

men of a sanguine temperament had so often 

to pay for taking too little exercise, too much 

food and too much drink: apoplexy, softening 

of the brain, impotence. 

Fore and aft, fore and aft, pacing the windward 

side of the quarterdeck, his own private 

realm, a narrow unencumbered path on which 

he had travelled hundreds, even thousands of 

miles since he first commanded the Surprise;


an utterly familiar terrain on which his mind 

could let itself run free. The breeze was too far 

before the beam for the ships, steering southeast, 

to set studdingsails, but they were wearing 

everything they possessed, including that 

uncommon object a middle staysail, and they 

were making four knots. They were an elegant 

sight indeed, from any distance; but from 

close to, a seaman's eye could still see many 

signs of the battering they had been through: 

some knots had yet to be replaced by splices 

or new cordage; the fine finish of the decks 

had not yet been restored – in some places 

what ordinarily resembled a ball-room floor 

still looked more like a bloody shambles; and 

clouds of hot volcanic ash and scoriae had 

played Old Harry with the paintwork and the 

blacking of the yards, to say nothing of the tar. 

An immense amount of small, unspectacular, 

highly-skilled work was going on from one


end of the ship to the other, and Captain Aubrey's 

walk was accompanied by the steady 

thump of caulker's mallets. It was early in the 

day, and although the weather was as fair as 

could be wished, apart from the lack of wind, 

the quarterdeck had nobody upon it who was 

not called there by duty: Vidal and Reade, officer 

and midshipman of the watch; the men 

at the helm; the carpenter and two of his crew 

at the taffrail, putting the frigate's modest 

decorative carving, her gingerbread-work, to 

rights. The usual daily procession of Jemmy 

Ducks, Sarah and Emily, carrying hen-coops 

and leading the goat Amalthea, had come 

and gone; and as usual Jack, reflecting upon 

the rapid growth of the little girls, thought of 

his own daughters, their present height, weight 

and happiness, their possible but unlikely progress 

in deportment, French and the pianoforte 

under Miss O'Mara. But neither Stephen


nor Martin had appeared, nor any of the ransomers. 

A mile and a half of steady pacing 

followed these reflexions about home, and 

then two distinct thoughts arose: 'I must ask 

Wilkins whether he will act as third lieutenant 

until we reach Callao: they say he was a master's 

mate in Agamemnon.' This second 

thought ran on into a consideration of those 

young men who, having passed the Navy's examination 

for a lieutenant, remained senior 

midshipmen or master's mates because they 

did not also 'pass for a gentleman', a mute, 

unwritten, unacknowledged examination 

whose result was announced only by the absence 

of a commission – a practice that was 

becoming more and more frequent. He considered 

the advantages often put forward – a 

more homogeneous mess, less friction, the 

hands' greater respect for gentlemen than for 

their own kind – and the disadvantages – the


exclusion of such men as Cook, the unstated 

qualifications and the varying standards of 

those who did the choosing, the impossibility 

of appeal. He was still considering when, on 

reaching the rail and turning, he noticed that 

the young man in question, one of the ransomer 

mates, was now present, together with 

some others of those who were allowed to 

walk the quarterdeck. 

Four turns later he heard Reade's shrill cry of 

'Oh no, sir, no. You cannot talk to the Captain,' 

and he saw Dutourd headed off, admonished, 

led firmly back to the group to leeward. 

'But what did I do?' he cried, addressing 

Stephen, who had just come up the companion-ladder. 

'I only wished to congratulate him 

on his playing.' 

'My dear sir, you must not address the Captain,' 

said Stephen.


'You cannot possibly go over to the windward 

side, without you are invited,' said Wilkins. 

'Even I may not speak to him, except on duty,' 

said Reade. 

'Well,' said Dutourd, recovering from his surprise 

and concealing a certain vexation moderately 

well, 'you are a markedly formal, hierarchical 

society, I see. But I hope, sir' – to 

Maturin – 'that I may without sin tell you how 

very much I enjoyed your music? I thought the 

Boccherini adagio masterly, masterly...' 

They walked off, still speaking of the Boccherini, 

with real knowledge and appreciation 

on Dutourd's part. Stephen, who in any case 

was not of an expansive nature, tended to 

avoid the Frenchman on general principles; 

but now he would voluntarily have remained 

in his company had not six bells struck. The 

sixth was followed by pandemonium fore and


aft as the launch, towing astern, was hauled 

alongside to receive Mr Reade, her crew, barrels 

of water for the parched Franklin, and two 

carronades. The precious water, mercifully, 

could be pumped from the hold into barrels in 

the boat, but in the nature of things carronades 

could not: they were lowered down from 

the reinforced main yardarm, lowered with an 

infinity of precautions as though each were 

made of spun glass rather than of metal, and 

they were received with even more. They were 

ugly, squat little objects yet they had their advantages, 

being only a third the weight of the 

Surprise's regular twelve-pounder cannon but 

firing a ball twice as heavy; furthermore they 

could be fought by a much smaller crew – two 

zealous hands at a pinch, as opposed to the 

seven or eight gathered round a long twelve. 

On the other hand they could not fire their 

heavy ball very far nor very accurately, so


Jack, who loved the fine-work of gunnery, disabling 

an opponent from a distance before 

bearing down and boarding him, carried them 

chiefly as ballast, bringing them up only when 

he contemplated a cutting-out expedition, 

dashing into a harbour and blazing away at 

nearby batteries and the like while the boats 

set about their prey. Or on an occasion such 

as this, when the disarmed Franklin could be 

equipped with a two-hundred-and-forty-pound 

broadside. 

'If this weather continues,' said Jack ' – and 

the glass is perfectly steady – the Franklin 

should soon be a very useful consort: and we 

are, after all, getting somewhat nearer the 

path of merchantmen, to say nothing of roving 

whalers.' 

'I wish it may go on,' said Stephen. 'The temperature 

in Paradise must have been very like 

this.'


It did go on, day after golden day: and during 

the afternoons Martin and Dutourd could 

often be heard playing, sometimes evidently 

practising, since they would take a passage 

over and over again. 

Yet in spite of his music, and in spite of the 

fact that he played better with the Frenchman 

far forward than he did in the cabin, Martin 

was not happy. Stephen was rarely in the gunroom 

– apart from anything else Dutourd, a 

frequent guest, was an inquisitive man, apt to 

ask questions, by no means always discreet; 

and evading enquiries was often potentially 

worse than answering them – and apart from 

the general taking of air on the quarterdeck 

Stephen and his assistant met for the most part 

either in the sick-berth or in Stephen's cabin, 

where their registers were kept. Both were 

much concerned with the effects of their 

treatment: they had kept accurate records over


a long period, and at present it was the study 

and comparison of these case-histories that 

made up the great part of their professional 

duty. 

At one of these meetings Stephen said, 'Once 

again we have not exceeded five knots at any 

time in the day, in spite of all this whistling 

and scratching of backstays. And it makes a 

great while since fresh water has been allowed 

for washing anything but the invalids' clothes, 

in spite of our prayers for rain. Yet providing 

we do not die of thirst, I comfort myself with 

the thought that even this languid pace brings 

us nearly a hundred miles closer to my cocaleaves 

– a hundred miles closer to wallowing 

in some clear tepid stream, washing the ingrained 

salt from my person and chewing 

coca-leaves as I do so, joy.' 

Martin tapped a sheaf of papers together 

and after a moment he said, 'I have no notion


of these palliatives, which so soon become 

habitual. Look what happened to poor 

Padeen, and the way we are obliged to keep 

the laudanum under lock and key. Look at the 

spirit-room in this ship, the only holy of holies, 

necessarily guarded day and night. In one of 

my parishes there are no less than seven alehouses 

and some of them sell uncustomed 

spirits. I hope to put all or at least some of 

them down. Dram-drinking is the curse of the 

nation. Sometimes I turn a sermon in my 

mind, urging my hearers to bear their trials, to 

rely on their own fortitude, on fortitude from 

within, rather than their muddy ale, tobacco, 

or dram-drinking.' 

'If a man has put his hand into boiling water, 

is he not to pull it out?' 

'Certainly he is to pull it out – a momentary 

action. What I deprecate is the persistent indulgence.'


Stephen looked at Martin curiously. This was 

the first time his assistant had spoken to him in 

a disobliging if not downright uncivil manner 

and some brisk repartees came into his mind. 

He said nothing, however, but sat wondering 

what frustrations, jealousies, discontents had 

been at work on Nathaniel Martin to produce 

this change not only of tone but even of voice 

itself and conceivably of identity: the words 

and the manner of uttering them were completely 

out of character. 

When the silence had lasted some heavy 

moments Martin said, 'I hope you do not think 

there is anything personal about my remarks. 

It was only that your mention of coca-leaves 

set my mind running in another direction...' 

The shattering din of the Franklin as she fired 

first her starboard and then her larboard 

broadside and as her captain desired his men 

to 'look alive, look alive and bear a hand', in-


terrupted him. There were only these two, to 

test the slides and tackle, but they were rippling 

broadsides and they lasted long enough 

to drown Martin's last words and the first of 

those spoken by the newly-arrived Norton, although 

he roared them: he was therefore 

obliged to repeat, still as though he were hailing 

the masthead, 'Captain's compliments to 

Mr Martin and would be glad of his company 

at dinner tomorrow.' 

'My duty and best compliments to the Captain, 

and shall be happy to wait on him,' said 

Martin. 

'And Franklin has hailed to say that Captain 

Pullings has put his jaw out again,' – this to Dr 

Maturin. 

'I shall be over in a moment,' said Stephen. 

'Pray, Mr Norton, get them to lower down my 

little skiff. Padeen,' he called in Irish to his


huge loblolly boy, 'leap into the little boat, will 

you now, and row me over.' 

'Shall I bring bandages and perhaps the Batavia 

salve?' asked Martin. 

'Never in life. Do not stir: I have known this 

wound since it was made.' 

That was many years since, in the Ionian Sea, 

when a Turk gave Pullings a terrible slash on 

the side of his face with a scimitar, so damaging 

his cheekbone and the articulation of the 

joint that it often slipped, particularly when 

Captain Pullings was calling out with more 

than usual force. Stephen had put it more or 

less right at the time, and now he did so 

again; but it was a delicate little operation, 

and one that required a hand with a knowledge 

of the wound. 

This was the first time Stephen had been 

aboard the Franklin for any length of time


since the earlier critical days, when his horizon 

was almost entirely bounded by the walls of 

his operating and dressing stations – blood 

and bones, splints, lint, tow and bandages, 

saws, retractors, artery-hooks – and he had 

had little time to see her as a ship, to see her 

from within. Nor of course had Tom Pullings 

been able to show the Doctor his new command, 

already very near to his heart. 'I am so 

glad you was not obliged to come across before 

we had our whole armament aboard,' he 

said. 'Now you will see how trim and neat they 

sit in their ports, and how well they can traverse, 

particularly those amidships; and I will 

show you our new cross-catharpins, rigged 

this very afternoon. They bring in the foremast 

and aftermast shrouds, as I dare say you noticed 

when Padeen was pulling you over. And 

there are a vast number of other things that 

will astonish you.'


A vast number indeed: a vaster number of 

objects than Dr Maturin had supposed to exist 

in any ship afloat. Long, long ago, at the beginning 

of Stephen's naval career, Pullings, 

then a long, thin midshipman, had shown him 

over His Majesty's ship Sophie, a brig, Jack 

Aubrey's first, dwarfish command: he had 

done so kindly, conscientiously, but as a subordinate 

displaying her main features to a 

landsman. Now it was a captain showing his 

new ship to a man with many years of seaexperience, 

and Stephen was spared nothing 

at all: a fancy-line rigged on new principles, 

these cross-catharpins of course, drawings of 

an improved dumb-chalder to be shipped 

when she docked at Callao. Yet although his 

guide was now burlier by far, and almost unrecognizable 

from his frightful wound, there 

was the same ingenuous open friendliness, an 

unchanged pleasure in life, in sea-going life,


and Stephen followed him about, admiring, 

and exclaiming, 'Dear me, how very fine' until 

the sun set, and the twilight, sweeping over the 

sky with tropical rapidity, soon left even Pullings 

without anything to point at. 

'Thank you for showing me your ship,' said 

Stephen, going over the side. 'For her size, she 

is the beauty of the world.' 

'Not at all,' said Tom, simpering. 'But I am 

afraid I was too long-winded.' 

'Never in life, my dear. God bless now. 

Padeen, shove away. Give off.' 

'Good night, sir,' said the seven Sethians, 

their smiles gleaming in the massive beards, 

as they thrust the skiff clear with a boom. 

'Good night, Doctor,' called Pullings. 'I forgot 

the plan of the new fairleads, but I promise to 

show it you tomorrow: the Captain has invited 

me to dinner.'


'I am glad of that,' thought Stephen, waving 

his hat. 'It will make the party less awkward.' 

He did not see Martin again that evening, but 

he thought of him from time to time; and 

when he had turned in, when he was lying in 

his cot, very gently rocking on the quiet sea, 

he reflected not so much upon the outburst of 

that afternoon as upon the notion of changing 

identity. He had known it often enough. A delightful 

child, even a delightful early adolescent, 

interested in everything, alive, affectionate, 

would turn into a thick, heavy, stupid 

brute and never recover: ageing men would 

become wholly self-centred, indifferent to 

those who had been their friends, avaricious. 

Yet apart from the very strong, very ugly passions 

arising from inheritance or political disagreement 

he had not known it in men neither 

young nor old. He swung, and thought, his 

mind wandering free, sometimes to the allied


but quite distinct subject of inconstancy in 

love; and presently he found that this too was 

to be a sleepless night. 

The moon was high when he came on deck, 

and there was a heavy dew. 'Why, then,' he 

asked, feeling the rail wet under his hand, 

'with so heavy a dew is the moon not veiled? 

Nor yet the stars?' 

'Have you come on deck, sir?' asked Vidal, 

who had the middle watch. 

'I have, too,' said Maturin, 'and should be 

obliged if you would tell me about the dew. 

One says it falls: but does it fall in fact? And if 

it fall, where does it fall from? And why in falling 

does it not obscure the moon?' 

'Little do I know of the dew, sir,' said Vidal. 

'All I can say is that it loves a clear night and 

air as near still as can be: and every sailor 

knows it tightens all cordage right wicked, so


you must slacken all over if you do not want 

your masts wrung. It is a very heavy dew tonight, 

to be sure,' he went on, having reflected, 

'and we have clapped garlands on the 

masts to collect it as it trickles down: if you listen 

you can hear it running into the butts. It 

don't amount to much, and it don't taste very 

good, the masts having been paid with slush; 

but I have known many a voyage when it was 

uncommon welcome. And in any case it is 

fresh, and will wash a shirt clear of salt; or 

even better' – lowering his voice – 'a pair of 

drawers. The salt is devilish severe on the 

parts. Which reminds me, sir: I must beg some 

more of your ointment.' 

'By all means. Look in at the sick-berth when I 

make my morning rounds, and Padeen will 

whip you up a gallipot directly.' 

Silence: a vast moonlit space, but no horizon. 

Stephen gazed up at the dew-soaked


sails, dark in the moon-shadow, the topgallants 

and topsails rounding just enough to 

send the ship whispering along, the courses 

hanging slack. 

'As for the dew,' said Vidal after a while, 'you 

might ask Mr Dutourd. There's a learned gentleman 

for you! Not in physic, of course, but 

more in the philosophical and moral line: 

though as I understand it he has many friends 

in Paris who make experiments with the electric 

fluid, gas-balloons, the weight of air – that 

kind of thing – and perhaps dew might have 

come into it. But what a pleasure it is to hear 

him talk about moral politics! The rights of 

man, brotherhood, you know, and equality! 

He has edified us many an hour with his observations, 

you might almost say his oratory, 

on the just republic. And the colony he 

planned – no privileges, no oppression; no 

money, no greed; everything held in common,


like in a mess with good shipmates – no statutes, 

no lawyers – the voice of the people the 

only law, the only court of justice – everybody 

to worship the Supreme Being just as he sees 

fit – no interference, no compulsion, complete 

freedom.' 

'It sounds like the earthly Paradise.' 

'That is what many of our people say. And 

some declare they would not have been so 

eager to stop Mr Dutourd if they had known 

what he was about – might even have joined 

him.' 

'Do they not reflect that he was preying on 

our whalers and merchantmen, and helping 

Kalahua in his war with Puolani?' 

'Oh, as for the privateering side, that was entirely 

his Yankee sailing-master, and they 

would certainly never have joined in that – not 

against their own countrymen, though natural


enough, in war-time, on the part of a foreigner. 

No: it was the colony that pleased 

them so, with its peace and equality and a decent 

life without working yourself to the bone 

and an old age that don't bear thinking on.' 

'Peace and equality, with all my heart,' said 

Stephen. 

'But you shake your head, sir, and I dare say 

you are thinking about that war. It was sadly 

misrepresented, but Mr Dutourd has made 

everything quite clear. The sides had been 

spoiling for a fight time out of mind, and once 

Kalahua had hired those riffraff Frenchmen 

from the Sandwich Islands with muskets there 

was no holding him. They had nothing to do 

with Mr Dutourd's settlers. No. What Mr D 

meant to do was to sail in with a show of force 

and set himself between them, then establish 

his own colony and win both sides over by example 

and persuasion. And as for persua-


sion...! If you had heard him you would have 

been convinced directly: he has a wonderful 

gift, you might say an unction, even in a foreign 

language. Our people think the world of 

him.' 

'He certainly speaks English remarkably well.' 

'And not only that, sir. He is remarkably good 

to what were his own men. You know how he 

sat up with them night after night in the sickberth 

until they were either cured or put over 

the side. And although the master of the 

Franklin and his mates were right hard-horse 

drivers, the men who are with us now say Mr 

D was always stepping in to protect them – 

would not have them flogged.' 

At this point, just before eight bells, a sleepy, 

yawning Grainger came on deck to relieve his 

shipmate; and the starboard watch, most of 

whom had been sleeping in the waist, began


to stir: the ship came to a muted sort of life. 

'Three knots, sir, if you please,' reported young 

Wedell, now an acting midshipman. And in 

the usual piping, calling, hurrying sounds of 

the change – all fairly discreet at four o'clock 

in the morning – Stephen slipped away to his 

cabin. There was something curiously pleasing 

about the Knipperdollings' credulity, he reflected 

as he lay there with his hands behind 

his head: an amiable simplicity: and he was 

still smiling when he went to sleep. 

To sleep, but not for long. Presently the idlers 

were called, and they joined the watch in the 

daily ritual of cleaning the decks, pumping 

floods of sea-water over them, sanding, holystoning 

and swabbing them, flogging them dry 

by the rising of the sun. There were hardened 

sailors who could sleep through all this – Jack 

Aubrey was one, and he could be heard snoring 

yet – but Stephen was not. On this occa-


sion it did not make him unhappy or fretful, 

however, and he lay there placidly thinking of 

a number of pleasant things. Clarissa came 

into his mind: she too had something of that 

simplicity, in spite of a life as hard as could 

well be imagined. 

'Are you awake?' asked Jack Aubrey in a 

hoarse whisper through a crack in the door. 

'I am not,' said Stephen. 'Nor do I choose to 

swim; but I will take coffee with you when you 

return to the ship. The animal,' he added to 

himself. 'I never heard him get up.' It was true. 

Jack weighed far too much, but he was still 

remarkably light on his feet. 

With this fine brisk start to the day Dr Maturin 

was early for his morning rounds, a rare thing 

in one with so vague a notion of time. These 

rounds amounted to little from the strictly surgical 

point of view, but Stephen still had some


obstinate gleets and poxes. In long, fairly quiet 

passages these and scurvy were the medical 

man's daily fare; but whereas Stephen could 

oblige the seamen to avoid scurvy by drinking 

lemon-juice in their grog, no power on earth 

could prevent them from hurrying to bawdyhouses 

as soon as they were ashore. These 

cases he treated with calomel and guaiacum, 

and it was usual for the draughts to be prepared 

by Martin: Stephen was not satisfied 

with the progress of two of his patients and he 

had resolved upon dosing them in the far 

more radical Viennese manner when he saw a 

beetle on the deck just this side of the halfopen 

door, clear in the light of the dispensary 

lantern, a yellow beetle. A longicorn of 

course, but what longicorn? An active longicorn, 

in any event. He dropped on to his 

hands and knees and crept silently towards it: 

with the beetle in his handkerchief, he looked


up. His advance had brought the door directly 

in front of him, with the whole dispensary lit, 

clear, and as it were in another world: there 

was Martin, gravely mixing the last of his row 

of draughts, and as Stephen watched he 

raised the glass and drank it off. 

Stephen rose to his feet and coughed. Martin 

turned sharply. 'Good morning, sir,' he said, 

whipping the glass under his apron. The greeting 

was civil, but mechanically so, with no 

spontaneous smile. He had obviously not forgotten 

yesterday's unpleasantness and he appeared 

both to resent his exclusion from the 

passage to the Franklin and to expect resentment 

on Stephen's part for his offensive remarks. 

Stephen was in fact of a saturnine 

temperament, as Martin knew: he could even 

have been called revengeful, and he found it 

difficult to forgive a slight. But there was more 

than this; it was as though Martin had just es-


caped being detected in an act he was very 

willing to conceal, and there was some remaining 

tinge of defiant hostility about his attitude. 

Padeen came in, and having called on God 

to bless the gentlemen he announced, with 

some difficulty, that the sick-berth was ready 

for their honours. The medical men went from 

cot to cot, Stephen asking each man how he 

did, taking his pulse and examining his peccant 

parts: he discussed each case briefly with 

his assistant, in Latin, and Martin wrote down 

his observations in a book: as the book closed 

so Padeen gave each seaman his draught and 

pills. 

When it was over they returned to the dispensary 

and while Padeen was washing the 

glasses Stephen said, 'I am not satisfied with 

Grant or MacDuff and intend to put them on 

the Viennese treatment next week.'


'My authorities speak of it, but I do not recall 

that they name its principle.' 

'It is the murias hydrargi corrosivus.' 

'The phial next to the myrrh? I have never 

known it used.' 

'Just so. I reserve it for the most obdurate 

cases: there are grave disadvantages... Now, 

Padeen, what is amiss?' 

Padeen's stammer, always bad, grew worse 

with emotion, but in time it appeared that 

there had been ten glasses in the cupboard an 

hour ago, not even an hour ago, and they 

shining: now there were only nine. He held up 

his spread hands with one finger folded down 

and repeated 'Nine.' 

'I am so sorry, sir,' said Martin. 'I broke one 

when I was mixing the draughts, and I forgot 

to tell Padeen.'


Both Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin were 

much attached to their wives, and both wrote 

to them at quite frequent intervals; but 

whereas Jack's letters owed their whole existence 

to the hope that they would reach home 

by some means or another – merchantman, 

man-of-war or packet – or failing that that 

they would travel there in his own sea-chest 

and be read aloud to Sophie with explanations 

of just how the wind lay or the current 

set, Stephen's were not always intended to be 

sent at all. Sometimes he wrote them in order 

to be in some kind of contact with Diana, 

however remote and one-sided; sometimes to 

clarify things in his own mind; sometimes for 

the relief (and pleasure) of saying things that 

he could say to no one else, and these of 

course had but an ephemeral life. 

My dearest soul, he wrote, when the


last element of a problem, code or puzzle 

falls into place the solution is sometimes 

so obvious that one claps one's 

hand to one's forehead crying, 'Fool, 

not to have seen that before.' For some 

considerable time now, as you would 

know very well if we had some power of 

instant communication, I have been 

concerned about the change in my relations 

with Nathaniel Martin, by the 

change in him, and by his unhappiness. 

Many and sound reasons did I adduce 

when last I wrote, naming an undue 

concern with money and a conviction 

that its possession should in common 

justice win him more consideration and 

happiness than he possesses, as well as 

many other causes such as jealousy, the 

boredom of uncongenial companions 

from whom there is no escape, a long-


ing for home, wife, relations, consequence, 

peace and quiet, and a fundamental 

unsuitability for naval life, 

prolonged naval life. But I did not mention 

the efficient cause because I did 

not perceive it until today, though it 

should have been evident enough from 

his intense application to Astruc, Booerhaave, 

Lind, Hunter and what few other 

authorities on the venereal distemper 

we possess (we lack both Locker and 

van Swieten), and even more from his 

curiously persistent eager detailed enquiries 

about the possibility of infection 

from using the same seat of ease, drinking 

from the same cup, kissing, toying 

and the like. Whether he has the disease 

I cannot tell for sure without a 

proper examination, though I doubt he 

has it physically: metaphysically how-


ever he is in a very bad way. Whether 

he lay with her or not in fact he certainly 

wished to do so and he is clerk enough 

to know that the wish is the sin; and being 

also persuaded that he is diseased 

he looks upon himself with horror, unclean 

without and within. Unhappily he 

has taken yesterday's disagreement 

more seriously than I did – our relations 

are a cool civility at the best – and in 

these circumstances he will not consult 

me. Nor obviously can I obtrude my 

services. Self-hatred usually seems 

more likely to generate hatred of others 

(or at least surliness and a sense of 

grievance) than mansuetude. Poor fellow, 

he is invited to dine in the cabin 

this afternoon, and to bring his viola. I 

dread some kind of éclat: he is in a very 

nervous state.


There was a confident knock on the door and 

Mr Reade walked smiling in, quite sure of his 

welcome. From time to time what was left of 

his arm needed dressing, and this was one of 

the appointed days: Stephen had forgotten it; 

Padeen had not, and the bandage stood on 

the aftermost locker. While it was putting on, 

fold after exactly-spaced fold, Reade said, 'Oh 

sir, I had a wonderful thought in the graveyard 

watch. Please would you do me a great kindness?' 

'I might,' said Stephen. 

'I was thinking about going to Somerset 

House to pass for lieutenant when we get 

home.' 

'But you are not nearly old enough, my dear.' 

'No, sir: but you can always add a year or 

two: the examining captains only put 'appears


to be nineteen years of age', you know. Besides, 

I shall be nineteen in time, of course, 

particularly if we go on at this pace; and I 

have my proper certificates of sea-time served. 

No. The thing that worried me was that since I 

am now only a tripod rather than a quadrupod, 

they might be doubtful about passing 

me. So I have to have everything on my side. 

These calm days I have been copying out my 

journals fair – you have to show them up, you 

know – and in the night it suddenly occurred 

to me that it would be a brilliant stroke and 

amaze the captains, was I to add some seamanlike 

details in French.' 

'Sure it could not fail to do so.' 

'So I thought if I took Colin, one of the Franklins 

in my division, a decent fellow and prime 

seaman though he has scarcely a word of 

English, on to the forecastle in the first dog, 

shall we say, sir, and pointed to everything be-


longing to the foremast and he told me the 

French and you told me how to write it down, 

that would be very capital. It would knock the 

captains flat – such zeal! But I am afraid I am 

asking for too much of your time, sir.' 

'Not at all. Hold this end of the bandage, will 

you, now? There: belay and heave off handsomely.' 

'Thank you very much indeed, sir. I am infinitely 

obliged. Until the first dog, then?' 

'Never you think so, Mr Reade, sir,' said Killick, 

coming in with Stephen's new-brushed 

good blue coat and white kerseymere 

breeches over his arm. 'Not the first dog, no, 

nor yet the last. Which the Doctor is going to 

dine with the Captain, and they won't be done 

in the melodious line before the setting of the 

watch. Now, sir, if you please,' – to Stephen – 

'let me have that wicked old shirt and put this


one on, straight from the smoothing-iron. 

There is not a moment to be lost.' 

In fact the dinner went off remarkably well. 

Martin might not carry Jack Aubrey in his 

heart, but he respected him as a naval commander 

and as a patron: it would be ungenerous 

to say that his respect was increased by 

the prospect of another benefice to come, but 

at some level the fact may well have had its 

influence. At all events, in spite of looking 

drawn and unwell he played his part as a 

cheerful, appreciative guest quite well, except 

that he drank almost no wine; and he told two 

anecdotes of his own initiative: one of a trout 

that he tickled as a boy under the fall of a 

weir, and one of an aunt who had a cat, a 

valuable cat that lived with her in a house 

near the Pool of London – the animal vanished 

– enquiries in every direction – tears that 

lasted a year, indeed until the day the cat


walked in, leapt on to its accustomed chair by 

the fire and began to wash. Curiosity had led 

it aboard a ship bound for Surinam, a ship 

from the Pool that had just returned. 

After dinner it was proposed that they should 

play, and since one of the chief purposes of 

the feast was to give Tom Pullings pleasure 

they played tunes he knew very well. Songs, as 

often as not, and dances, some delightful 

melodies with variations on them; and from 

time to time Jack and Pullings sang. 

'Your viola has profited immensely from its 

repair,' said Jack when they were standing up 

for leave-taking. 'It has a charming tone.' 

'Thank you, sir,' said Martin. 'Mr Dutourd has 

improved my fingering, tuning and bowing – 

he knows a great deal about music – he loves 

to play.' 

'Ah, indeed?' said Jack. 'Now, Tom, do not


forget your horizon-glass, I beg.' 

In his role of virtually omnipotent captain 

Jack could be deaf to a hint, particularly if it 

reached him indirectly: Stephen was less well 

placed, and two days later when Dutourd, 

having wished him a good morning and having 

spoken of the pleasure it had given him to 

linger on the quarterdeck all the time they 

played, went on to say, with an ease that surprised 

Maturin until he recalled that wealthy 

men were used to having their wishes regarded, 

'It would perhaps be too presumptuous 

in me to entreat you to let Captain Aubrey 

know that it would give me even greater 

pleasure to be admitted to one of your sessions: 

I am no virtuoso, but I have held my 

own in quite distinguished company; and if I 

were allowed to play second fiddle we might 

embark upon quartets, which have always 

seemed to me the quintessence of music.'


'I will mention it if you wish,' said Stephen, 

'but I should observe that in general the Captain 

looks upon these as little private affairs, 

quite unbuttoned and informal.' 

'Then perhaps I must be content to listen from 

afar,' said Dutourd, taking no apparent offence. 

'Yet it would be benevolent in you to 

speak of it, if a suitable occasion should offer.' 

He broke off to ask what was going on 

aboard the Franklin. Stephen told him that 

they were rigging out the foretopgallant studdingsail 

booms. 'Les bouts-dehors des bonnettes 

du petit perroquet,' he added, seeing 

Dutourd's look of blank ignorance, an ignorance 

equal to his own until yesterday, when 

he had helped Reade to write the terms in his 

journal. From this they moved on to a consideration 

of sails in general; and after a while, 

when Stephen was already impatient to be 

gone, Dutourd, looking him full in the face,


said, 'It is surely very remarkable that you 

should know the French for studdingsail 

booms as well as for so many animals and 

birds. But it is true that you have a remarkable 

command of our language.' A meditative 

pause. 'And now that I have the honour of being 

better acquainted with you it seems to me 

that we may have met before. Do not you 

know Georges Cuvier?' 

'I have been introduced to Monsieur Cuvier.' 

'Yes. And were you not at Madame Roland's 

soirees from time to time?' 

'You are probably thinking of my cousin Domanova. 

We are often confused.' 

'Perhaps so. But tell me, sir, how do you 

come to have a cousin called Domanova?' 

Stephen looked at him with astonishment, 

and Dutourd, visibly drawing himself in, said, 

'Forgive me, sir: I am impertinent.'


'Not at all, sir,' replied Stephen, walking off. 

His inward voice ran on, 'Is it possible that the 

animal has recognized me – that he has some 

notion however vague of what we are about – 

and that this is in some degree a threat?' Dutourd's 

was not an easy face to read. Superficially 

it had the open simplicity of an enthusiast, 

together with the politeness of his class 

and nation; these did not of course exclude 

everyday cunning and duplicity, but there was 

also something else, a slight insistence in his 

look, a certain self-confidence, that might 

mean far deeper implications. 'Shall I never 

learn to keep my mouth shut?' he muttered, 

opening the sick-berth door, and aloud, 'God 

and Mary and Patrick be with you,' in answer 

to Padeen's greeting. 'Mr Martin, a good 

morning to you.' 

'How these halcyon days go on and on, the 

one following the other with only a perfect


night between,' he said, walking into the 

cabin. 'We might almost be on dry land. But 

tell me, Jack, will it never rain at all – hush. I 

interrupt your calculations, I find.' 

'What is twelve sixes?' asked Jack. 

'Ninety-two,' said Stephen. 'My shirt is like a 

cilice with the salt. I should wear it dirty and 

reasonably soft, but that Killick takes it away – 

he finds it out with a devilish ingenuity and 

flings it into the sea-water tub and I am convinced 

that he adds more salt from the brinetubs.' 

'What is a cilice?' 

'It is a penitential garment made of the 

harshest cloth known to man and worn next 

the skin by saints, hermits, and the more anxious 

sinners.' 

Jack returned to his figures and Stephen to 

his disagreeable reflexions. 'What goeth be-


fore destruction?' he asked. 'Pride goeth before 

destruction, that is what. I was so proud 

of knowing those spars in English, let alone in 

French, that I could not contain, but must be 

blabbing like a fool. Hair-shirt, indeed: the 

Dear knows I deserve one.' 

In time Jack put down his pen and said, 'As 

for rain, there is no hope of it, according to 

the glass. But I have been casting the prize 

accounts, as far as I can without figures for 

the Franklin's specie: a roundish figure, which 

is some sort of consolation.' 

'Very good. To predatory creatures like myself 

there is something wonderfully fetching about 

a prize. The very word evokes a smile of concupiscent 

greed. Speaking of the Franklin reminds 

me that Dutourd wishes you to know 

that he would be glad of an invitation to play 

music with us.'


'So I gather from Martin,' said Jack, 'and I 

thought it a most uncommon stroke of effrontery. 

A fellow with wild, bloody, regicide revolutionary 

ideas, like Tom Paine and Charles 

Fox and all those wicked fellows at Brooks's 

and that adulterous cove – I forget his name, 

but you know who I mean – ' 

'I do not believe I am acquainted with any 

adulterers, Jack.' 

'Well, never mind. A fellow who roams about 

the sea attacking our merchantmen with no 

commission or letter of marque from anyone, 

next door to a pirate if not actually bound for 

Execution Dock – be damned if I should invite 

him if he were a second Tartini, which he ain't 

– and in any case I disliked him from the start 

– disliked everything I heard of him. Enthusiasm, 

democracy, universal benevolence – a 

pretty state of affairs.'


'He has qualities.' 

'Oh yes. He is not shy; and he stood up very 

well for his own people.' 

'Some of ours think highly of him and his 

ideas.' 

'I know they do: we have some hands from 

Shelmerston, decent men and prime seamen, 

who are little better than democrats – republicans, 

if you follow me – and would easily be 

led astray by a clever political cove with a fine 

flow of words: but the man-of-war's men, particularly 

the old Surprises, do not like him. 

They call him Monsieur Turd, and they will not 

be won round by smirking and leering and the 

brotherhood of man: they dislike his notions 

as much as I do.' 

'They are tolerably chimerical, admittedly, 

and it is surprising that a man of his age and 

his parts should still entertain them. In 1789 I


too had great hopes of my fellows, but now I 

believe the only point on which Dutourd and I 

are in agreement is slavery.' 

'Well, as for slavery... it is true that I should 

not like to be one myself, yet Nelson was in 

favour of it and he said that the country's 

shipping would be ruined if the trade were put 

down. Perhaps it comes more natural if you 

are black... but come, I remember how you 

tore that unfortunate scrub Bosville to pieces 

years ago in Barbados for saying that the 

slaves liked it – that it was in their masters' interest 

to treat them kindly – that doing away 

with slavery would be shutting the gates of 

mercy on the negroes. Hey, hey! The strongest 

language I have ever heard you use. I wonder 

he did not ask for satisfaction.' 

'I think I feel more strongly about slavery than 

anything else, even that vile Buonaparte who 

is in any case one aspect of it... Bosville... the


sanctimonious hypocrite... the silly blackguard 

with his 'gates of mercy', his soul to the Devil – 

a mercy that includes chains and whips and 

branding with a hot iron. Satisfaction. I should 

have given it him with the utmost good will: 

two ounces of lead or a span of sharp steel; 

though common ratsbane would have been 

more appropriate.' 

'Why, Stephen, you are in quite a passion.' 

'So I am. It is a retrospective passion, sure, 

but I feel it still. Thinking of that ill-looking 

flabby ornamented conceited self-complacent 

ignorant shallow mean-spirited cowardly 

young shite with absolute power over fifteen 

hundred blacks makes me fairly tremble even 

now – it moves me to grossness. I should have 

kicked him if ladies had not been present.' 

'Come in,' called Jack. 

'Mr Grainger's duty, sir,' said Norton, 'and the


wind is hauling aft. May he set the weather 

studdingsails?' 

'Certainly, Mr Norton, as soon as they will 

stand. I shall come on deck the moment I 

have finished these accounts. If the French 

gentleman is at hand, pray tell him I should 

like to see him in ten minutes. Compliments, 

of course.' 

'Aye aye, sir. Studdingsails as soon as they 

will stand. Captain's compliments to Monsieur 

Turd...' 

'Dutourd, Mr Norton.' 

'Beg pardon, sir. To Monsieur Dutourd and 

wishes to see him in ten minutes.' 

On receiving this message Dutourd thanked 

the midshipman, looked at Martin with a 

smile, and began walking up and down from 

the taffrail to the leeward bow-chaser and 

back again, looking at his watch at each turn.


'Come in,' cried Jack Aubrey yet again. 

'Come in, Monsieur-Mr Dutourd, and sit 

down. I am casting my prize-money accounts 

and should be obliged for a statement of the 

amount of specie, bills of exchange and the 

like carried in the Franklin: I must also know, 

of course, where it is kept.' 

Dutourd's expression changed to an extraordinary 

degree, not merely from confident 

pleasurable anticipation to its opposite but 

from lively intelligence to a pale stupidity. 

Jack went on, 'The money taken from your 

prizes will be returned to its former owners – I 

already have sworn statements from the ransomers 

– and the Franklin's remaining treasure 

will be shared out among her captors, according 

to the laws of the sea. Your private purse, 

like your private property, will be left to you;


but its amount is to be written down.' Dutourd's 

wits had returned to him by now. Jack 

Aubrey's massive confidence told him that any 

sort of protest would be worse than useless: 

indeed, this treatment compared most favourably 

with the Franklin's, whose prisoners 

were stripped bare; but the long pause between 

capture and destitution, so very unlike 

the instant looting he had seen before, had 

bred illogical hopes. He managed a look of 

unconcern, however, and said, 'Vae victis' and 

produced two keys from an inner pocket. 'I 

hope you may not find that my former shipmates 

have been there before you,' he added. 

'There were some grasping fellows among 

them.' 

There were some grasping fellows aboard the 

Surprise too, if men who dearly loved to get 

their hands upon immediate ringing gold and 

silver rather than amiable but mute, remote,


almost theoretical pieces of paper, are to be 

called grasping. There had been the sound of 

chuckling throughout the ship ever since Oracle 

Killick let it be known 'that the skipper had 

got round to it at last', and a boat carrying Mr 

Reade, Mr Adams and Mr Dutourd's servant 

had pulled across to the Franklin, returning 

with a heavy chest that came aboard not indeed 

to cheers, for that would not have been 

manners, but with great cheerfulness, good 

will, and anxious care while it hung in the 

void, and witticisms as it swung inboard, to be 

lowered as handsomely as a thousand of 

eggs. 

Even until the next day, however, Stephen 

Maturin remained unaware of all this, for not 

only had he dined by himself in the cabin, 

Jack Aubrey being aboard the Franklin, but his 

mind was almost entirely taken up with cephalopods; 

and as far as he took notice of the


gaiety at all (by no means uncommon in the 

Surprise, that happy ship) he attributed it to 

the freshening of the breeze, which was now 

sending the two ships along at close on five 

knots with promise of better to come. He had 

had to make his morning rounds alone, Martin 

having remained in bed with what he described 

as a sick headache; Jack's breakfast 

and Stephen's had for once failed to coincide, 

and they had exchanged no more than a 

wave from the sea to the deck before Stephen 

sat down to his collection. Some of the cephalopods 

were dried, some were in spirits, one 

was fresh: having ranged the preserved 

specimens in due order and checked the labels 

and above all the spirit level (a necessary 

precaution at sea, where he had known jars 

drained dry, even those containing asps and 

scorpions) he turned to the most interesting 

and most recent creature, a decapod that had


fixed the terrible hooks and suckers of its long 

arms into the net of salt beef towing over the 

side to get rid of at least some of the salt before 

the pieces went into the steep-tub – had 

fixed them with such obstinate strength that it 

had been drawn aboard. 

With Sarah and Emily standing in opposite 

corners of the cabin and holding the squid's 

arms just so, Stephen snipped, drew, and described, 

dissecting out various processes for 

preservation: there was alas no possibility of 

keeping the entire animal even if he had possessed 

a jar large enough, since it was Mr 

Vidal's property, he having detached it from 

the beef at the cost of some cruel wounds (a 

spiteful decapod) and having promised it to 

the gunroom cook for today's feast, this Friday 

being the day when, on the other side of the 

world, Shelmerston, forgetting all differences 

of creed, lit bonfires and danced round them


singing a chant whose meaning was now lost 

but which as late as Leland's time was clearly 

in honour of the goddess Frig; and even today 

the words retained such power that as Stephen 

well knew no Shelmerstonian born and bred 

would willingly omit them. 

The little girls were usually as good and silent 

as could be on these occasions, but now the 

coming of the feast and the arrival of the 

prize-money overcame Sarah's discretion and 

she said, 'Jemmy Ducks says Monsieur Turd's 

nose is sadly out of joint. He kicked Jean Potin's 

arse. Jean Potin is his servant.' 

'Hush, my dear,' said Stephen. 'I am counting 

the suckers. And you are not to say Monsieur 

Turd: nor arse.' 

Emily prized Stephen's attention and approval 

more than her immortal soul: though an affectionate 

child, she would betray her best friend


to obtain it and now she called out from her 

corner, 'She is always saying Monsieur Turd. 

Mr Grainger checked her for saying it only 

yesterday: he declared it was wicked to speak 

so of such a benevolent gentleman.' 

'Heave that tentacle taut,' said Stephen. 

'Never mind your pinafores.' He knew the 

squid's destination and he was working fast, 

with great concentration. Yet well before the 

description was complete there was a gunroom 

cook's mate begging his pardon, but so 

horny an old bugger, if his honour would excuse 

the word, needed a good hour in the 

pot: his honour sighed, quickly removed one 

last ganglion and sat back. 'Thank you, my 

dears,' he said to the little girls. 'Give Nicholson 

a hand with the longer arms. And Sarah, 

before you go, pass me the frigate-bird, will 

you, now?' 

He was pretty well acquainted with frigate-


birds, as any man who had sailed so far in 

tropical waters must be, and he had skinned 

quite a number, distinguishing three or perhaps 

four closely-allied species and making 

careful descriptions of their plumage; but he 

had never thoroughly dissected one. This he 

now settled himself to do, meaning first to examine 

the flight muscles, for in their lofty soaring 

the frigate-birds were perhaps even more 

remarkable than the albatrosses: and he had 

scarcely laid bare the breast before he had a 

premonition that he might be on the verge of 

the finest anatomical study of his career. 

The bird, naturally enough, possessed a 

wishbone: yet from the very first it had seemed 

extraordinarily, unnaturally, firm under his 

touch. As his scalpel worked delicately down 

towards the keel of the breastbone, a spatula 

easing the muscles aside, he was perfectly 

deaf to the ring of coins and the powerful


voices on the other side of the bulkhead – 

Captain Aubrey, the two oldest forecastle 

hands (rather hard of hearing), and Mr Adams 

telling over the treasure of the Franklin, converting 

it into Spanish dollars and reckoning 

the shares – and to those on the quarterdeck: 

an extraordinary number of hands had found 

tasks that kept them within earshot of the open 

companion, and they kept up a murmured 

commentary upon the amounts, provenence 

and rates of exchange of the coins handled 

below, showing a wonderful grasp of the 

European and American system, switching 

from Dutch rixdollars to Hanover ducats with 

as much ease as from Barcelona pistoles to 

Portuguese joes, Venice sequins or Jamaica 

guineas. The murmur, the remarkably strong 

murmer, ceased when hands were piped to 

dinner, but the telling in the great cabin continued, 

while Stephen, without a thought for


anything else, steadily exposed the upper thorax 

of the frigate-bird. 

He had not quite bared all the essentials by 

the time Killick and Padeen came in fairly 

skipping with impatience to say that the gunroom 

was assembling – the feast was almost 

under way. He submitted to their attentions 

and hurried below properly dressed, fairly 

clean, with his wig straight on his head and a 

look of shining delight still on his face. 

'Why, gentlemen,' he cried on entering the 

gunroom, 'I am afraid I was almost late.' 

'It is no matter,' said Grainger. 'We had another 

whet and feel the better for it. But now I 

will ask Mr Martin to say grace, and we will 

set to.' 

Martin had been moved to make room for 

two more Shelmerstonians from the prize and 

now he was on Stephen's right. He was look-


ing ill and thin and when they sat down 

Stephen said to him in a low voice, 'I trust I 

see you tolerably well?' 

'Perfectly so, I thank you,' said Martin without 

a smile. 'It was only a passing malaise.' 

'I am glad to hear it; but you must certainly 

stay on deck this evening,' said Stephen; and 

after a pause, 'I have just made a discovery 

that I think will please you. In the frigate-bird 

the symphysis of the furcula coalesces with the 

carina and the upper end of each ramus with 

the caracoid, while in its turn each caracoid 

coalesces with the proximal end of the scapula!' 

His look of modest triumph faded as he 

saw that Martin's anatomy did not appear to 

reach so far, or at least not to grasp at the 

consequences, and he went on, 'The result, of 

course, is that the whole assembly is entirely 

rigid, apart from the slight flexion of the rami. I 

believe this to be unique among existing birds,


and closely related to the creature's flight.' 

'It is of some interest, if your example was not 

a sport,' said Martin, 'and perhaps it justifies 

taking the bird's life away. But how often have 

we seen hecatombs that yield nothing of significance 

– hundreds and hundreds of stomachs 

opened, all with much the same result. 

Even Mr White of Selborne shot very great 

numbers. Sometimes I feel that the dissection 

may take place merely to warrant the killing.' 

Stephen had often known patients eager to 

be disagreeable: a common morbid irritability, 

especially in putrid fevers. But it was almost 

invariably kept for their friends and relations, 

rarely extending to their medical men. On the 

other hand, although Martin was undoubtedly 

sick, Stephen was not in fact his physician; nor 

was it likely that Martin would consult him. He 

made no reply, turning to Mr Grainger with 

praise of the squid soup; but he was


wounded, deeply disappointed, far from 

pleased. 

Opposite him sat Dutourd, apparently in 

much the same unenviable state of mind. Both 

men however kept up a creditable appearance 

of urbanity for some time: they even exchanged 

remarks about the squid, though it 

was clear to most of the table that not only 

was Dutourd's nose out of joint but that he 

held the Doctor in some degree responsible. 

For Grainger, Vidal and the rest, privateers or 

man-of-war's men, taking or being taken was 

as much part of sea-going life as fair weather 

or foul and they accepted these things as they 

came; but they knew that this was the first time 

Dutourd had been stripped – relatively 

stripped – and they treated him with a particular 

deferential gentleness, rather as though he 

were recently bereaved. This had the effect of 

making him more loquacious than usual: to-


wards pudding-time his voice rose from the 

tone of conversation to something nearer that 

of public address and Stephen realized with 

dismay that they were to hear a discourse on 

Rousseau and the proper education of children. 

The plum-duff vanished, the cloth was drawn, 

the decanters moved steadily round, Dutourd 

boomed on. Stephen had stopped listening 

several glasses back: his mind turned sometimes 

with glowing joy to his discovery, more 

often with intense irritation at Martin's obvious 

desire to wound. It was true that Martin was 

much more an observer of birds – an accurate, 

highly experienced observer – than a systematic 

ornithologist, basing his taxonomy 

upon anatomical principles, yet even so... 

Dr Maturin had curiously pale eyes, which he 

often covered with blue spectacles. He was 

not wearing them at present, and this pallor


was much accentuated by the mahogany tan 

of his face on the one hand and on the other 

by the cold displeasure with which he reflected 

upon his assistant, now sitting by him in dogged 

silence. 

He was gazing straight before him in one of 

these reveries when Dutourd, pouring himself 

yet another glass of port, caught his eye and 

taking the glare as a personal reflexion he 

said, 'But I am afraid, Doctor, that you do not 

share our opinion of Jean-Jacques?' 

'Rousseau?' said Stephen, returning to the 

immediate present and composing his features 

to a more sociable amenity or at last adopting 

a less grim and even sinister expression. 'Rousseau? 

faith, little do I know of him, apart from 

the Devin du Village, which I enjoyed; but his 

theories have been floating about me for ever, 

and once an admirer made me swear to read


the Confessions. I did so: an oath is sacred. 

But all the time I was reminded of a cousin, a 

priest, who told me that the most tedious, 

squalid and disheartening part of his duty was 

listening to penitents who having made the act 

of contrition recounted imaginary, fictitious 

sins, unclean phantasms. And the most painful 

was the giving of an absolution that might be 

blasphemous.' 

'You surely did not doubt Rousseau's truthfulness?' 

'Out of common charity I was obliged to do 

so.' 

'I do not understand you, sir.' 

'You will recall that in this book he speaks of 

four or five children his mistress bore him, 

children that were at once dismissed to the 

foundling hospital. Now this does not agree 

very well with his praise of the domestic affec-


tions, still less with his theories of education in 

Emile. So unless I was to think of him as a 

hypocrite where bringing up the young was 

concerned, I was compelled to regard him as 

a begetter of false babies.' The ransomer merchants 

at the end of the table, earthy creatures 

who unlike their serious hosts had been growing 

more and more restless, burst into a great 

horse-laugh at the words false babies, and 

clawing one another on the back they called 

out, 'Hear him. Very good. Hear him.' 

'Those children can perfectly well be explained 

to a candid mind,' cried Dutourd over 

the hubbub, 'but where there is a fixed prejudice, 

an evident hatred of progress and 

enlightenment, a love of privilege and outworn 

custom, a denial of the essential goodness 

of man, a settled malevolence, I have 

nothing to say.' 

Stephen bowed, and turning to the troubled


acting first lieutenant he said, 'Mr Grainger sir, 

you will forgive me if I leave you at this point. 

Yet before I go, before I sling my hook, allow 

me to propose a toast to Shelmerston. Bumpers, 

gentlemen, if you please; and no heeltaps. 

Here's to Shelmerston, and may we soon 

sail in over her bar with never a scrape.' 

'Shelmerston, Shelmerston, Shelmerston for 

ever,'they cried as he walked off, returning to 

the great cabin and feeling the ship's much 

stronger pitch and roll as he went. He found 

Jack well into his dinner and sat down beside 

him. 'Will I confess a grave sin?' he asked. 

'Do, by all means,' said Jack, looking at him 

kindly. 'But if you managed to commit a grave 

sin between the gunroom and here you have a 

wonderful capacity for evil.' 

Stephen took a piece of biscuit, tapping it 

mechanically, brushed away the weevil-frass,


and said, 'I was in a wicked vile temper, so I 

was too, and I flew out at Dutourd and Rousseau.' 

'He was in an ugly frame of mind as well, 

very willing to have a fight. He could only just 

be civil when I made him give up the Franklin's 

money; yet God knows it was natural enough.' 

'So you took his money away? I did not 

know.' 

'Not his money – we left him his purse – his 

ship's money: booty from her prizes, cash carried 

for stores and supplies. It is always done, 

you know, Stephen. You must have seen it 

scores of times. The chest came aboard in the 

forenoon watch.' 

'Oh certainly, certainly. Only I was not on 

deck at the time, and I do not believe anybody 

mentioned the fact. Yet I did observe a general 

gaiety; and Sarah stated that Dutourd's


nose was out of joint.' 

'Indeed he took it very ill. He had a great 

deal of money aboard. But what could he expect? 

We are not a philanthropic institution. 

Adams and I and two of the hands were telling 

it all the morning: there were some very curious 

pieces, particularly among the gold. I kept 

this little heap to show you.' 

'Little do I know of money,' said Stephen, 'but 

these are surely bezants; and is not this very 

like an archaic gold mohur? Pierced and worn 

as a charm, no doubt.' 

'I am sure of it,' said Jack. 'And what do you 

make of this broad piece? It is rubbed almost 

smooth, but if you hold it sideways to the light 

you can make out a ship with a forwardraking 

mast, very heavy shrouds, and an absurd 

high-perched poop or after-castle.' 

In time Jack finished his dinner, and when


they were drinking their coffee Stephen said, 'I 

made a remarkable discovery this morning. I 

believe it will make a great stir in the Royal 

Society when I read my paper; and Cuvier will 

be amazed.' He described the extraordinarily 

unyielding nature of the frigate-bird's bosom, 

contrasting it with that of other fowl, no more 

rigid than an indifferent wicker basket, and 

spoke of its probable connexion with the creature's 

soaring flight. As it was usual with them 

when they spoke of the lie of the land, naval 

manoeuvres or the like he traced lines on the 

table with wine, and Jack, following with keen 

attention, said, 'I take your point, and I believe 

you are right. For this, do you see' – drawing a 

ship seen from above – 'is the mainyard when 

we are close-hauled on the starboard tack. It 

is braced up sharp with the larboard brace – 

here is the larboard brace – the sheet hauled 

aft, the weather leeches hauled forward with


bowlines twanging taut, and the tack hauled 

aboard, brought down to the chess-trees and 

well bowsed upon. When all this is done in a 

seaman-like manner there is precious little 

give – flat as a board – and a stiff, welltrimmed 

ship fairly flies along. Surely there is a 

parallel here?' 

'Certainly. If you will come next door I will 

show you the bones in question and their coalescence, 

and you will judge the degree of rigidity 

yourself, comparing it with that of your 

sheets and chess-trees. I was called away before 

the dissecting was quite complete – before 

everything was as white and distinct as a 

specimen or example mounted for an anatomy 

lesson – but you will never dislike a little 

blood and slime.' 

Stephen was not a heavy, impercipient man 

in most respects, yet he had known Jack Aubrey 

all these years without discovering that he


disliked even a very little blood and slime extremely: 

that is to say, cold blood and slime. 

In battle he was accustomed to wading ankledeep 

in both without the least repulsion, laying 

about him in a very dreadful manner. But he 

could scarcely be brought to wring a chicken's 

neck, still less watch a surgical operation. 

'You will take the exposed furcula between 

your finger and thumb,' Stephen went on, 'and 

all proportions guarded you will gauge its 

immobility.' 

Jack gave a thin smile: seven excuses came 

to his mind. But he was much attached to his 

friend; and the excuses were improbable at 

the best. He walked slowly forward into what 

had once been his dining-cabin and was now, 

to judge from the reek, a charnel-house. 

He did indeed take the exposed furcula as he 

was desired to do, and he listened to


Stephen's explanations with his head gravely 

inclined: he looked not unlike a very large 

dog that was conscientiously carrying out an 

unpleasant duty: but how happy he was when 

the duty was done, when the explanations 

came to an end, and when he could walk out 

into the fresh air with a clear conscience! 

'Everything is laid along, sir,' said Vidal, 

meeting him at the head of the companionladder. 

'The chest is up, the Frenchmen ordered 

below, and Mr Adams is by the capstan 

with the muster-book.' 

'Very good, Mr Vidal,' said Jack, breathing 

deep. He glanced at the sky, he glanced aft, 

where the Franklin lay on the frigate's quarter 

a cable's length away, throwing a fine bowwave. 

'Let us take in royals and topgallant 

studdingsails.' 

Vidal had hardly relayed the order before the


topmen were racing aloft: the royals and topgallant 

studdingsails vanished, the ship's way 

sensibly decreased, and Jack said, 'All hands 

aft, if you please.' 

'Mr Bulkeley, pipe all hands aft,' said Vidal to 

the bosun, who replied, 'All hands aft it is, sir,' 

and instantly wound his call – sharp blasts followed 

by a long quavering shriek. 

This was the first official information to reach 

the foremast hands, but if anyone aboard was 

so simple as to expect them to be surprised at 

the news he was wholly mistaken: they had all 

contrived to be clean, shaved, sober and 

properly dressed; they all had their hats; and 

now they all swarmed aft along the larboard 

gangway, overflowing on to the quarterdeck in 

the usual shapeless heap. There they stood 

grinning and sometimes nudging one another, 

and Jack called out, 'Now, shipmates, we are 

going to proceed to a provisional sharing-out.


But this is all to be by silver, Spanish dollars or 

pieces of eight, shillings and bits, or by gold 

that everybody knows: guineas, louis d'or, 

ducats, joes and the like. The old-fashioned, 

outlandish pieces will be sold by weight and 

shared accordingly. Mr Wedell, hands out of 

beckets.' The unhappy boy blushed crimson, 

whipped his hands from his pockets and crept 

behind the taller Norton with what countenance 

he could summon. 'Paper notes and 

bills, and of course hull, fittings, goods and 

head-money, come in the final reckoning.' 

'If spared,' murmured Mr Vidal. 

'Just so,' said Jack. 'If spared. Mr Adams, 

carry on.' 

'Ezekiel Ayrton,' cried Mr Adams, his finger on 

the open muster-book, and Ayrton, foretopman, 

starboard watch, came aft, happy 

though somewhat conscious of being alone


and in the public gaze. He walked across the 

quarterdeck, taking off his hat as he came, 

but instead of passing straight on beyond the 

Captain to the windward gangway and so 

forward as he would have done at an ordinary 

muster, he advanced to the capstan. There, 

upon the capstan-head, Adams paid down 

two guineas, one louis d'or, two ducats (one 

Venetian, the other Dutch) and enough pieces 

of eight and Jamaica bits to bring the sum to 

twenty-seven pounds six shillings and fourpence. 

Ayrton swept them into his hat with a 

chuckle, moved on two paces and touched his 

forehead to the Captain. 'Give you joy of them 

Ayrton,' said Jack, smiling at him. So it went 

throughout the alphabet, with more laughter 

and outbursts of wit than would have been 

countenanced in a more regular man-of-war, 

until a minute after John Yardley, yeoman of 

the sheets, had joined his jocose, wealthy


companions on the forecastle, when all merriment 

was cut to instant silence by the hail 

from the masthead: 'On deck there: object 

fine on the starboard bow. Which I believe it is 

a barrel.'


FIVE 

The barrel, the first inanimate object they had 

seen outside their own wooden world for what 

already seemed an age, was watched intently 

by all hands as it bobbed closer; and when at 

last it came aboard, seized with some difficulty 

by Bonden and Yardley, tossing on the choppy 

sea in the Doctor's skiff, most of the Surprise's 

former whalers came as far aft alongside the 

gangway as was decent, for the cask was seen 

to be bound with withies, not with iron hoops, 

not man-of-war fashion nor even that of a 

China-going ship. 

'Mr Vidal,' said Jack, 'you have been in the 

South Sea fishery: what do you make of it?'


'Why, sir,' said Vidal, 'I should say it is a Yankee 

barrel; but I sailed out of London River, 

and never was in those ports. Simon and Trotter 

would know more.' 

'Pass the word for Simon and Trotter,' said 

Jack, and they instantly stepped on to the 

quarterdeck.' 

'Martha's Vineyard,' said Trotter, turning the 

barrel in his hands. 

'Nantucket,' said Simon. 'I was married there, 

once.' 

'Then how come it has Isaac Taylor's mark?' 

asked Trotter. 

'Well, any road,' said Simon, looking fixedly 

at Jack, 'this here is a Yankee barrel, sir, what 

they call a Bedford hog in New England; and 

it has not been in the water a couple of days. 

There is no sea-clummer on it. And the dowels 

is sound. They would never have heaved it


over the side without they had a full hold. A 

full hold and homeward bound.' 

All within earshot nudged one another, grinning: 

their prize-money clanked in their 

loaded hats; they were delighted at the idea of 

even more. 

Jack considered the sky, the set of the sea, 

the breeze and the current. The whole ship's 

company, eminently professional, did the 

same. The only exception was Dr Maturin, 

who considered a thin line of birds, high and 

remote: when he had fixed them in his pocketglass 

(no simple feat with the increasing swell) 

he put them down as southern cousins to the 

kittiwake: they were gliding steadily eastsouth-east. 

For a moment he thought of offering 

Martin the little telescope; but he decided 

against it. For their part Martin and Dutourd 

were contemplating the seamen, their profoundly 

serious, concentrated weighing of the


sea, the weather, the possibilities of a capture, 

and Stephen heard Martin say, 'Homo hominis 

lupus.' 

Jack called the Franklin up by signal and 

when she was within half a cable's length he 

stepped right aft and called out, 'Tom, we 

have picked up a barrel, seemingly fresh, perhaps 

from a Yankee whaler. Bear away to 

leeward and let us sweep on our former 

course.' 

Not a great deal was left of the tropical day, 

but until the very dipping of the sun every 

masthead was manned and relieved each 

bell; and some lingered on throughout the 

brief twilight. Even the most sanguine had 

known that the chance of finding a ship in this 

immensity of ocean with no more than a barrel 

and the known habits of South Sea whalers 

for guidance was very remote, although hope 

was sustained by the presence of sea-birds


(rather uncommon in these blue waters) travelling 

in the same direction. The chief basis of 

this hope was a fervent desire that it should be 

fulfilled, and it sank steadily with the coming 

of the night, sweeping up deep purple from 

the east, already flecked with stars. Now, in 

the last dog-watch, as the last men came 

slowly down, dispirited, it revived, rising high 

above its former merely speculative pitch, for 

the Franklin, far over to leeward, sent up a 

blue flare, followed shortly after by a nightsignal, 

a hoist of lanterns. 

Reade was signal-midshipman, and with his 

telescope poised on Wedell's shoulder he read 

off the hoist to his Captain in a firm, official 

voice. 'Telegraphic, sir: alphabetic. K. R. E. N. 

G. Kreng, sir: I hope I have got it right,' he 

added in a more human tone. 

'Kreng, ha, ha ha!' cried a dozen voices on 

the gangway; and the helmsman, in a low,


kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we 

call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head 

emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all 

stripped off.' 

Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr 

Reade, acknowledge and make the signal 

Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails .' 

This same course took the Surprise past the 

dead whale soon after the moon had risen: 

white birds whirled and flashed through the 

beams of the stern lantern. They could 

scarcely be identified – some pied petrels and 

possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart 

from gulls – but on the other hand the huge 

carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea, 

was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have 

been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed 

Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's 

side. 'They are not as troublesome as the 

young ones, not being so nimble, but they


sound mighty deep – I have known one take 

out the line of four boats an-end, eight hundred 

fathom, can you imagine it? – and when 

they come up they are apt to turn awkward 

and snap your boat in two. But may I say, 

Doctor,' he added in a hesitant murmur, 'I saw 

your mate catting over the side – to windward, 

poor soul – and then he went below, looking 

right sickly. Could he have eaten something, 

do you suppose?' 

'Perhaps he may. Though possibly it is the 

lively motion of the ship, with these short sudden 

seas and all this spray.' 

'To be sure, the breeze is dead against the 

current now: and the stream has grown 

stronger with the main not so very far away.' 

However, Martin seemed reasonably well for 

their morning rounds, though the sea was livelier 

still, and the ship pitched with more than


ordinary force as they sailed large under mere 

topsails and they close-reefed, sweeping as 

wide an expanse of the somewhat hazy sea as 

ever they could, perpetually looking for their 

quarry or to their consort for a signal. Theoretically 

each could see at least fifteen miles in 

all directions; and even with the necessity for 

keeping within clear signalling distance they 

covered a vast area, but the veering wind 

brought low scud and it was not until early in 

the forenoon watch, with the misty sun two 

spans above the horizon, that the exultant hail 

'Sail ho!' came down from the masthead, 

echoing below, even into the sick-berth itself. 

'We've found them!' cried Martin with a triumph 

that contrasted strangely with his now 

habitually anxious, withdrawn, cheerless expression. 

'Go along, my dears,' said Stephen to the little 

girls, whose duties were already over, and


with the sketch of a bob they flitted away into 

the dark orlop, scattering rats and cockroaches 

as they ran, invisible but for their 

white pinafores. Stephen finished rubbing blue 

ointment into Douglas Murd, washed his 

hands, tossed Martin the towel, called to 

Padeen, 'Let the glasses dry of themselves,' 

and ran on deck, joining almost all the ship's 

company who were not aloft. 

'Ho, Doctor,' called Jack from the starboard 

rail, 'here's an elegant spectacle.' He nodded 

forward over the short tossing angry sea, and 

as he nodded a sperm whale rose not ten 

yards out, blew a fine spout, breathed audibly 

and dived, a great smooth roll. The spout 

swept aft along the deck and beyond it 

Stephen saw the whaler clear, directly to 

windward: beyond her, two boats close together, 

and farther still, a mile and more to 

the east, three more. 'They were so busy with


their fish they did not see us till a moment 

ago. The boats in the north-north-east have 

not seen us yet. But look at the men on board 

the ship – parcel of old women.' He passed 

the telescope and at once that remote deck 

sprang close, sharp and distinct, visibly dirty 

and disordered even from here. Not many 

people still aboard, but those few running 

about with great activity and little apparent 

purpose, while a person in the crow's nest 

waved his arms with uncommon vehemence, 

pointing to the south. 

'Mr Grainger,' called Jack, 'pray explain the 

situation to the Doctor.' He took back his telescope, 

slung it, and ran up to the masthead 

like a boy. 

'Why, sir,' said Grainger in his comfortable 

West Country voice, 'those far-off boats away 

to the eastward are fast to a gurt old bull, 

running like a coach and six on a turnpike.


George, tell our William to bring my other 

spyglass, and bear a hand, bear a hand. 

Now, do you see,' he went on, when it came, 

'there is the headsman standing in the bows 

with his lance, to kill the whale when he rises. 

It was the boat-steerer sent the harpoon 

home, of course; and now he is in the stern 

again.' 

'A very broad-shouldered man.' 

'They generally are. The other boats are 

standing by, right close, ready to pass their 

lines in case he sounds again and deeper still. 

Now if you look back to the ship, sir, you will 

see they have had a fine morning: two whales 

killed and fast to a third. They are emptying 

the first one's head alongside now, or were 

until they saw us and started their capering; 

and an awkward time they were having of it, 

with the short seas breaking over all. And the 

two boats close to are towing in the second


fish. Those fast to the gurt old bull ain't seen 

us yet, watching so eager; but I dare say the 

ship will give them a gun presently.' 

Stephen gazed and gazed, the little figures 

hurrying and jerking about in the distant 

whaler, though clear, were perfectly mute, inaudible, 

which added a ludicrous side to their 

distress: some, including a man who was presumably 

the master, since he beat and cuffed 

the others, were struggling round the great trypots 

set up amidships to melt the blubber – 

struggling to get a gun clear of all the tryingout 

gear, the casks and the general whalerlike 

disorder. 

'The man in the crow's nest seems very earnest 

in urging them to go away to the right. 

He leaps up and down.' 

'Why, yes, sir. The Franklin lies there in the 

west, Ain't you noticed?'


'To tell you the truth, I had not. But why 

should he want them to go to her?' 

'Because she is wearing American colours, in 

course, whereas we wear the ensign. That is 

the Captain's guile, do you see? In any case 

they certainly know her, she having been aprivateering 

in these waters since March; and 

the look-out wants them to make sail for her 

while there is yet time: they do not know she is 

took. As the breeze lays now we should need 

two long boards or tacks if you follow me to 

come up with her, and by then she could just 

squeeze under the Franklin's lee.' 

'Little good would it do them.' 

'None at all, Doctor. But they don't know it. 

Nor they don't know what metal we carry.' 

'Would it not mean abandoning their friends 

over there in the east?' 

'Oh yes. And it would mean abandoning


three good fish, enough to break a whaler's 

heart. I doubt they do it: they are more likely 

to wait for the Franklin to come up, and then 

brazen it out the two of them, either hoping 

we will sheer off, or putting before the wind 

and running for it, the one supporting the 

other. But her master might possibly think it 

worth while to save a full hold; and then you 

know, sir,' said Grainger in a low confidential 

tone, 'a whaler's crew ships by the lay – no 

wages but a share in the profits – so the fewer 

come home the more the survivors gain. Oh, 

by God, they are doing it!' he cried. 'They are 

leaving their friends behind.' Indeed, the 

hands had dropped the gun for the yards and 

braces; and the nearer boats, having cast off 

their whale, were racing for the side, tearing 

through the broken sea. The sails dropped, 

the yards rose up, the ship's head turned, and 

as the men from the two boats scrambled


aboard she gathered way. She had a fine topgallant 

breeze on her quarter and she moved 

at a surprising pace. 

Her people packed on sail faster than would 

have been believed possible for so few hands, 

and their calculations were right: the whaler, 

wearing American colours on every mast, 

reached the Franklin well before the Surprise, 

which had paused to take the eastern boats in 

tow. 

When the whaler was within pistol-shot the 

Franklin hauled down her Stars and Stripes, 

hoisted the ensign and sent a twenty-fourpound 

ball skipping across the whaler's forefoot. 

She let fly her sheets and Tom Pullings 

hailed her in a voice of brass: 'Strike your colours 

and come under my lee.' 

She was still lying there when the Surprise 

came up with the eastern boats strung out be-


hind her; Jack rounded to and ranged up on 

the whaler's starboard side. 

'I have left her for you, sir,' called Pullings 

across the prize's deck. 

'Quite right, Tom,' replied Jack, and wiping 

the spray from his face – for even here, in the 

lee of two ships, the waves were chopping 

high – he gave the order 'Blue cutter away. Mr 

Grainger, go across, if you please: take possession 

and send the master back with his papers. 

The whaler, ahoy!' 

'Sir?' 

'Start a couple of casks fore and aft, d'ye 

hear me, there?' 

'Aye aye, sir,' said the master, a sparse, hardfeatured 

man, now awkwardly willing to 

please; and a moment later whale-oil poured 

from the scuppers, spreading with extreme rapidity. 

The sea did not cease heaving, but the


spray no longer flew – there was no white water, 

no breaking between the ships nor away 

to leeward. 

'Should you like to go, Doctor?' asked Jack, 

turning kindly. 'I believe you have always 

wanted to look into a whaler.' Stephen bowed, 

and quickly tied a length of bandage over his 

hat and wig, tying it under his chin. Jack directed 

his voice towards the half-swamped 

whale-boats astern: 'You fellows had better go 

aboard, before you are drowned.' 

It took some little time to get the Doctor 

safely down into the blue cutter; it took longer 

to get him up the oily side of the whaler, 

where the master stretched down an officious 

hand and Bonden thrust him from below. But 

he was scarcely on the filthy deck before the 

whale-boat crews came swarming aboard with 

their gear, the headsmen carrying their lances, 

the boat-steerers their shining harpoons. They


boarded mostly on the quarter, coming up 

nimbly as cats, and raced forward with a confused 

bellow. The master backed to the 

mainmast. 

'You left us to starve on the ocean, you rat,' 

roared the first headsman. 

'You made all sail and cracked on – cracked 

on,' roared the second, shaking his lance, 

barely articulate. 

'Judas,' said the third. 

'Now Zeek,' cried the master, 'you put down 

that lance. I should have picked you up...' 

The broad-shouldered harpooner, the man 

who had been fast to the big bull whale, was 

last up the side; he heaved his way through 

the shouting, tight-packed throng; he said 

nothing but he flung his iron straight through 

the master's breast, deep into the wood. 

Returning to the Surprise covered with blood


– a useless investigation, heart split, spinal 

cord severed – Stephen was met with the news 

that Martin had been taken ill. He dabbled his 

hands in a bucket of sea-water and hurried 

below. In spite of the activity on deck the gunroom 

was an example of the inevitably promiscuous 

nature of life at sea, with two anxious-looking 

officers sitting at the table with 

biscuit and mugs of soup in front of them, the 

cook standing at the door with the bill of fare 

in his hand and the grizzle-bearded lady of the 

gunroom at his side, all of them listening with 

concern to Martin's groans and stifled exclamations 

in the quarter-gallery, or rather the 

nasty little enclosure just aft by the bread-bins 

that served the gunroom for a quarter-gallery 

or house of ease, the deck being too low for 

anything more luxurious than a bucket. 

Eventually he came out, fumbling at his 

clothes, looking inhuman; he staggered to his


cabin and fell on to his cot, breathing quick 

and shallow. Stephen followed him. He sat on 

a stool and said in a low voice, close to Martin's 

head, 'Dear colleague, I am afraid you 

are far from well. May I not do something – 

mix a gentle palliative, a soothing draught?' 

'No. No, I thank you,' said Martin. 'It is a 

passing... indisposition. All I need is rest... and 

quiet,' He turned away. It was clear to Stephen 

that at this stage there was nothing more he 

could usefully say. And when Martin's breathing 

grew easier he left him. 

The rest of the ship was full of life, with prisoners 

coming aboard with their chests and a 

prize-crew going across to take over; and as 

usual the whaler's hands were being checked 

against her muster-book by Mr Adams, the 

Captain's clerk, in the great cabin. Jack and 

Tom Pullings were there, watching the men, 

listening to their answers, and making up their


minds how they should be divided. They were 

heavy, sad, disappointed men at present, with 

the whole of their three-years cruise taken 

from them in a moment; but their spirits would 

revive, and many an enterprising band of 

prisoners had risen upon their captors and 

seized the ship. Moreover sailors from the 

northern colonies could prove as troublesome 

and pugnacious as Irishmen. 

It appeared, however, that no more than a 

score of them belonged to the original crew 

from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and New 

Bedford. In three years many had died by violence, 

disease or drowning, whilst two or three 

had run, and their places had been filled with 

South Sea islanders and what could be picked 

up in the odd Pacific port: Portuguese, Mexican, 

half-castes, a wandering Chinese. A fairly 

simple division, though the Surprise was already 

somewhat short of hands.


The last, a thick-set youngish man who had 

lingered behind, came to a halt before the table 

and called out, 'Edward Shelton, sir, 

headsman, starboard watch: born in Wapping,' 

in a strong, undoubted Wapping voice. 

'Then what are you doing in an enemy ship?' 

asked Adams. 

'Which I went a-whaling during the peace 

and joined this here ship long before the 

American war was declared,' said Shelton, his 

words carrying perfect conviction. 'May I speak 

a word to the Captain?' 

Adams looked at Jack, who said, 'What have 

you to say, Shelton?' in a tone that though 

mild enough promised nothing. 

'You don't know me, sir,' said Shelton, putting 

a doubled forefinger to his forehead in the 

naval way, 'but I seen you often enough in 

Port Mahon, when you had the Sophie: I seen


you come in with the Cacafuego at your tail, 

sir. And many a time when you came aboard 

Euryalus, Captain Dundas, Captain Heneage 

Dundas, in Pompey: I was one of the sidemen.' 

'Well, Shelton,' said Jack, after a question or 

two for conscience' sake, 'If you choose to return 

to your natural service, to enter volunteerly, 

you shall have the bounty and I will find 

you a suitable rating.' 

'Thank you kindly, your honour,' said Shelton, 

'but what I mean is, we cleared from Callao 

on the seventh, and while we were getting our 

stores aboard – tar, cordage, sail-cloth and 

stockfish – there was a merchantman belonging 

to Liverpool, homeward-bound from the 

northwards, in dock, tightening up for her run 

round the Horn. We cleared on the seventh 

which it was a Tuesday, homeward-bound too 

though not really full: not a right good voy-


age, not heart's content as you might say, but 

middling. And off the Chinchas at break of 

day, there was a four-masted ship directly to 

windward. Man-of-war fashion. The master 

said, 'I know her, mates: she's a friend. A 

Frenchman out of Bordeaux, a privateer,' and 

he lay to. There was nothing else he could do, 

dead to leeward of a ship of thirty-two guns 

with yards like Kingdom Come and the black 

flag flying at her masthead. But as we lay 

there he walked fore and aft, gnawing his fingers 

and saying, 'Jeeze, I hope he remembers 

me. God Almighty, I hope he remembers me. 

Chuck' – that was his mate and aunt's own 

child – 'Likely he'll remember us, don't you 

reckon?' 

'Well, he did remember us. He hauled down 

his black flag and we lay alongside one another, 

matey-matey. He asked after the Liverpool 

ship and we told him she would be out of


dock in under a month. So he said he would 

stretch away to the westward for a while on 

the chance of an English whaler or a China 

ship and then lie off the Chinchas again: and 

he told us the sea thirty leagues to the westnorth-west 

was full of whales, thick with 

whales. We sailed together, separating 

gradually, and the day after we had sunk his 

topgallants there we were in the middle of 

them, spouting all round the compass.' 

'Tell me about her guns.' 

'Thirty-two nine-pounders, sir, or maybe 

twelves; in any case all brass. Besides her 

chasers. I never seen a privateer so set out. 

But I did not like to go aboard or look too curious, 

let alone ask no questions, not with that 

crowd of villains.' 

'Was their black flag in earnest?' 

'Oh yes, sir; deadly earnest. They were as


thorough-paced a no-quarter-given-or-asked 

as ever I see – trample the Crucifix any day of 

the week. But you and your consort could deal 

with her. I dare say Surprise could do so on 

her own, though it might be nip and tuck; and 

she would buy it very dear, they having to sink 

or be sunk. Which I mean if they are killed 

they are deaders, and if they are taken they 

are hanged. It is half a dozen of the one 

and...' His voice died away; he hung his head, 

a certain coldness having told him that he had 

been talking too much. 

'As taut as it is long,' said Jack, not unkindly. 

'Well, Shelton, is Mr Adams to write you down 

as pressed or volunteer?' 

'Oh volunteer, sir, if you please,' cried Shelton. 

'Make it so, Mr Adams, and rate him able for 

the moment: starboard watch,' said Jack. He


wrote on a piece of paper. 'Shelton, give this 

to the officer of the watch. Well, Tom,' he went 

on after the man had gone, 'what do you 

think?' 

'I believe him, sir, every word,' said Pullings. 'I 

am not to put my opinion before yours; but I 

believe him.' 

'So did I,' said Jack, and the old experienced 

Adams nodded his head. Jack rang the bell. 

'Pass the word for Mr Vidal.' And a few moments 

later, 'Mr Vidal, when we have seen the 

whaler's mate and her charts, and when we 

have shifted as much water out of her as can 

be done in thirty minutes, you will take command 

and steer for Callao under moderate 

sail. We are running down no great way in the 

hope of a Frenchman, and it is likely we shall 

overtake you. If we do not, wait there. Mr Adams 

will give you the necessary papers and 

the name of our agent: he looked after the


frigate's prizes on the way out. You may take 

the whaler's mate, bosun and cook – no arms, 

of course, either on themselves or in their 

chests – and several of our people.' 

'Very good, sir,' said Vidal, unmoved. 

'As for getting the water across, you have half 

an hour: there is not a minute to lose; and 

since the sea is a little choppy, spend the oil 

and spare not. A couple of casks are neither 

here nor there.' 

'Aye, aye, sir: spend and spare not it is.' 

'Jack!' cried Stephen, coming in to their 

strangely late and even twilit dinner, 'did you 

know that those active mariners have brought 

a large number of hogsheads aboard, and 

they filled with fresh water?' 

'Have they, indeed?' asked Jack. 'You amaze 

me.' 

'They have, too. May I have some to sponge


my patients and have their clothes washed at 

last?' 

'Well, I suppose you may have a little for 

sponging them – a very small bowl would be 

enough, I am sure – but as for washing 

clothes – washing clothes, good Lord! That 

would be a most shocking expenditure, you 

know. Salt does herrings no harm, nor lobsters; 

and my shirt has not been washed in 

fresh water since Heaven knows how long. It is 

like coarse emery-paper. No. Let us wait for 

the rain: have you looked at the glass?' 

'I have not.' 

'It began dropping in the first dog. It has already 

reached twenty-nine inches and it is still 

falling: look at the meniscus. And the wind is 

hauling aft. If the rain don't come down in 

great black squalls tonight or tomorrow, you 

shall have one of these hogsheads – well, half


a hogshead – for your clothes.' 

After a short, dissatisfied silence Dr Maturin 

said, 'It will be no news to you, sure, that the 

whaler has slipped away, going, they tell me, 

to Callao, if ever they can find the place God 

be with them.' 

'I had noticed it,' said Jack through his seapie. 

'But you may not know that two of her men 

forgot their pills entirely or that in his legitimate 

agitation Padeen gave Smyth a liniment, 

not telling him it was to be rubbed in rather 

than drunk. However, nobody, nobody has 

told me why we are rushing in this impetuous 

manner through the turgid sea, with sailors 

whose names I do not even know, rushing almost 

directly away, to judge by the sun, away 

from the Peru I had so longed to see and 

which you had led me confidently to expect


before Bridie's birthday.' 

'I never said which birthday, this or the next.' 

'I wonder you can speak with such levity 

about my daughter. I have always treated 

yours with proper respect.' 

'You called them a pair of turnip-headed 

swabs once, when they were still in long 

clothes.' 

'For shame, Jack: a hissing shame upon you. 

Those were your very own words when you 

showed them to me at Ashgrove before our 

voyage to the Mauritius. Your soul to the 

Devil.' 

'Well, perhaps they were. Yes: you are quite 

right – I remember now – you warned me not 

to toss them into the air, as being bad for the 

intellects. I beg pardon. But tell me, brother, 

has nobody told you what is afoot?' 

'They have not.'


'Where have you been?' 

'I have been in my cabin downstairs, contemplating 

on mercury.' 

'A delightful occupation. But he is not to be 

seen now, you know: he is too near the sun. 

And to tell you the truth he is neither much of 

a spectacle nor a great help in navigation, 

though charming from the purely astronomical 

point of view.' 

'I meant the metallic element. In its pure state 

quicksilver is perfectly neutral; you may swallow 

half a pint without harm. But in its various 

combinations it is sometimes benign – where 

would you portly men be without the blue pill? 

– and sometimes, when exhibited by inexpert 

hands, its compounds are mortal in doses so 

small they can hardly be conceived.' 

'So you know nothing of what is going forward?'


'Brother, how tedious you can be, on occasion. 

I did hear some cries of 'Jolly rogers – 

jolly rogers – we shall roger them.' But in parenthesis, 

Jack, tell me about this word roger. I 

have often heard it aboard, but can make out 

no clear nautical signification.' 

'Oh, it is no sea-term. They use it ashore 

much more than we do – a low cant expression 

meaning to swive or couple with.' 

Stephen considered for a moment and then 

said, 'So roger joins bugger and that even 

coarser word; and they are all used in defiance 

and contempt, as though to an enemy; 

which seems to show a curious light on the 

lover's subjacent emotions. Conquest, rape, 

subjugation: have women a private language 

of the same nature, I wonder?' 

Jack said, 'In some parts of the West Country 

rams are called Roger, as cats are called Puss;


and of course that is their duty; though which 

came first, the deed or the doer, the goose or 

the egg, I am not learned enough to tell.' 

'Would it not be the owl, at all?' 

'Never in life, my poor Stephen. Who ever 

heard of a golden owl? But let me tell you why 

we are cracking on like this in what promises 

to be a very dirty night. There was an Englishman 

called Shelton in the whaler's crew, a 

foremast jack in Euryalus when Heneage 

Dundas had her: he told us of a French fourmaster, 

fitted out man-of-war fashion, Alastor 

by name, that attacks anything she can overpower, 

whatever its nation; a genuine pirate, 

wearing the black flag, the Jolly Roger, which 

means strike and like to or we shall kill every 

man and boy aboard. We ask no quarter: we 

give no quarter. We have checked Shelton's 

account; we have looked at the whaler's chart, 

pricked all the way from their leaving Callao


to yesterday at sunset; and we know just about 

where the Alastor must be. She means to sail 

back to the coast and wait off the Chinchas 

for a Liverpool ship now docking at Callao for 

the homeward run. Listen!' 

The companion overhead lit with three 

flashes of extreme brilliance; thunder cracked 

and bellowed at masthead height; and then 

came the all-pervading sound of enormous 

rain, not exactly a roar, but of such a volume 

that Jack had to lean over the table and raise 

his powerful voice to tell Stephen that 'now he 

could sponge his patients, aye, and wash 

them and their clothes too – there would be 

enough for the whole ship's company – the 

first ten minutes would carry off all the filth 

and then they would whip off the tarpaulins 

and fill the boats and scuttlebutts.' 

The rain had no great effect on the swell, 

rolling strong from the north-west, but it flat-


tened the surface almost as effectually as oil, 

doing away with countless superficial noises, 

so that the great voice of the rain came right 

down into the sick-berth itself, and Stephen, 

on his evening rounds, had to repeat his exclamation, 

'I am astonished to see you here, 

Mr Martin: you are not fit to be up, and must 

go back to bed directly.' Of course he was not 

fit to be up. His eyes were deep-sunk in his 

now boney head, his lips were barely visible; 

and although he said, 'It was only a passing 

indisposition as I told you; and now it is over,' 

he had to grip the medicine-chest to keep upright. 

'Nonsense,' said Stephen. 'You must go 

back to bed directly. That is an order, my dear 

sir. Padeen, help Mr Martin to his cabin, will 

you, now?' 

When Stephen's work was done he walked up 

the ladder and into the gunroom: his was not 

exactly a seaman's step – there was something


too tentative and crablike for that – but no 

landsman would have accomplished it, paying 

so little attention to the motion in that pitching 

ship as she raced with a full-topsail gale three 

points on her quarter, her stern rising up and 

up on the following swell; nor would a landsman 

have stood there, barely conscious of the 

heave, as he considered his messmates' dwelling-place. 

It was a long dim corridor-like room, some 

eighteen feet wide and twenty-eight in length, 

with an almost equally long table running 

down the middle and the officers' cabin doors 

opening on to the narrow space on either side 

– opening outwards, since if they opened the 

other way they must necessarily crush the man 

within. There was no one in the gunroom at 

present apart from a seaman who was polishing 

the table and the foot of the mizenmast, 

which rose nobly through it half-way along,


though Wilkins, whose watch had just been relieved, 

could be heard snoring in the aftermost 

larboard dog-hole; yet at four bells the 

table would be lined with men eager for their 

supper. Dutourd was likely to be invited, and 

he was certain to talk: the ransomers were 

nearly always noisy: it was no place for a sick 

man. He walked into Martin's cabin and sat 

down by his cot. Since Martin had retired by 

order their relations were now changed to 

those between physician and patient, the physician's 

authority being enormously enhanced 

by the Articles of War. In any case a certain 

frontier had been crossed and at present 

Stephen felt no more hesitation about dealing 

with this case than he would have done if 

Martin had all at once run mad, so that he 

had to be confined. 

Martin's breathing was now easy, and he appeared 

to be in a very deep, almost comatose


sleep; but his pulse made Stephen most uneasy. 

Presently, shaking his head, he left the 

cabin: at the foot of the ladder he saw young 

Wedell coming down, soaked to the skin. 

'Pray, Mr Wedell,' he said, 'is the Captain on 

deck?' 

'Yes, sir. He is on the forecastle, looking out 

ahead.' Stephen grasped the hand-rail, but 

Wedell cried, 'May I take him a message, sir? I 

am wet as a whale already.' 

'That would be very kind. Pray tell him, with 

my compliments, that Mr Martin is far from 

well; that I should like to move him to the larboard 

midshipmen's berth; and that I should 

be obliged for two strong sensible hands.' 

The hands in question, Bonden and a powerful 

forecastle-man who might have been his 

elder brother, took a quick, seamanlike 

glance at the situation and with no more than


a 'By the head, mate. Handsomely, now,' they 

unshipped Martin's cot, carrying him forward 

in it at a soft barefoot trot to the empty larboard 

berth, where Padeen had cleared the 

deck and hung a lantern. They were of opinion 

that 'the Doctor's mate was as drunk as 

Davy's sow, and indeed the inert relaxation, 

the now-stertorous breathing, gave that impression. 

It was not the case, however. Nathaniel Martin 

had lain down in his clothes and now as 

Stephen and Padeen undressed him, as limp 

as a man deeply stunned, they saw the recent 

and exacerbated sores over much of his body. 

'Would this be the leprosy, your honour?' 

asked Padeen, his low, hesitant speech made 

slower, more hesitant by the shock. 

'It would not,' said Stephen. 'It is the cruel salt 

on a very sensitive skin, and an ill habit of


constitution. Go and fetch fresh water – it will 

be to be had by now – warm if ever the galley 

is lit, two sponges, two towels, and clean 

sheets from the chest by my bed. Ask Killick for 

those that were last washed in fresh.' 

'Salt and worse on a sensitive mind; an unhappy 

mind,' he added to himself. Leprosy he 

had seen often enough; eczemas of course 

and prickly heat carried to the extreme, but 

never anything quite like this. There were 

many things about Martin's state that he could 

not make out; and although analogies kept 

flitting through his mind like clues to the solution 

of a puzzle, none would settle or cling to 

its fellows. 

Padeen returned and they washed Martin 

with warm fresh water all over twice, then laid 

on sweet oil wherever it would do good, 

wrapping him at last naked in a clean sheet: 

no nightshirt was called for in this steady


warmth. From time to time he groaned or uttered 

a disconnected word; twice he opened 

his eyes, raised his head and stared about, 

uncomprehending; once he took a little water 

with inspissated lemon-juice in it; but generally 

speaking he was wholly inert, and the habitual 

look of anxiety had left his face. 

When he sent Padeen to bed Stephen sat on. 

In sponging Martin he had looked very attentively 

for signs of the veneral disorder that he 

had at one time suspected: there were none. 

As a naval surgeon he had a great experience 

of the matter, and there were no signs at all. 

He knew, as any medical man must know, that 

mind could do astonishing things to body – 

false pregnancies, for example, with evident, 

tangible lactation and all the other marks of 

gravidity – but the lesions now before him 

were of another kind, and more virulent. Martin 

might believe himself poxed, and the belief


might induce skin troubles, some forms of paralysis, 

constipation or uncontrolled flux, and 

in a man like Martin all the consequences of 

extreme anxiety, guilt and self-loathing; but 

not these particular miseries: he had seen 

something of the same nature in a patient 

whose wife was steadily poisoning him. More 

from intuition than any clear reasoning he expected 

a crisis of distress either about three in 

the morning, during what the Navy emphatically 

called the graveyard watch, when so 

many people die, or else at dawn. 

He sat on: and although the ship was full of 

sound – the hissing rush of water along her 

side, the combined voices of all her rigging 

under a press of sail, the churn of the pumps, 

for with such a wind and such a sea she was 

hauling under the chains and making a fair 

amount of water, and from time to time the 

drumming of yet another squall – he was by


now so accustomed to it that through the general 

roar he caught the strokes of the frigate's 

bell marking the watches through, and they 

often coincided with the minute silvery chime 

of the watch in his pocket. 

He was accustomed to the room, too. At one 

time the frigate, as a regular man-of-war, had 

carried several midshipmen, master's mates 

and others and she needed two berths for 

them; now, in her present ambiguous position 

of His Majesty's hired vessel Surprise, engaged 

in an unavowable intelligence mission but going 

through the motions of being a privateer, 

by way of cover, she carried only three, and a 

single berth, that on the starboard side, was 

enough. Earlier in the voyage from Sydney 

Cove, when the stowaway Clarissa was discovered 

and instantly married to the young 

gentleman who had concealed her, the couple 

had had this larboard berth to themselves,


and he had often sat with her when the 

weather was foul and the deck impossible; 

though their frequent consultations had always 

taken place in his cabin, where the light was 

better. 

Dr Maturin, as the frigate's surgeon, belonged 

officially to the gunroom mess: in fact 

he nearly always lived in the great cabin with 

his particular friend Jack Aubrey, sleeping in 

one of the smaller cabins immediately forward 

of it, but he remained a member of the mess; 

and he was the only member of whom poor 

long-horned Oakes was not jealous. Yet he 

was the only member who was deeply attached 

to Clarissa as a person rather than as 

a means to an end, and the only one who 

could have taken her affection away from 

Oakes, if it was affection that the young man 

valued. To be sure, Stephen was perfectly 

conscious of her desirability; he was an ordi-


nary sensual man in that respect and although 

in his long period of opium-eating his ardour 

had so declined that continence was no virtue, 

it had since revived with more than common 

force; yet in his view amorous conversation 

was significant only if the desire and the liking 

were shared, and early in their acquaintance it 

had become clear to him that physical lovemaking 

was meaningless to Clarissa, an act of 

not the slightest consequence. She took not 

the least pleasure in it and although out of 

good nature or a wish to be liked she might 

gratify a 'lover' it might be said that she was 

chastely unchaste. At that time no moral question 

was involved. The experience of her 

childhood – loneliness in a remote country 

house, early abuse, and a profound ignorance 

of the ordinary world – accounted for her attitude 

of mind: there was no bodily imperfection. 

None of this was written on her forehead,


however, nor was she apt to confide in anyone 

but her physician, and she was packed off with 

her husband in a prize bound for Batavia 

amid general disapprobation. They were to go 

home in an Indiaman, and there, perhaps, 

Mrs Oakes would stay with Diana while her 

husband returned to the sea: he was passionately 

eager to succeed in the Navy. 

Stephen thought about her most affectionately: 

it was her courage that he most admired 

– she had had a very hard life in London and 

an appalling one in the convict settlement of 

New South Wales, but she had borne up admirably, 

retaining her own particular integrity: 

no self-pity, no complaint. And although he 

was aware that this courage might be accompanied 

by a certain ferocity (she had been 

transported for blowing a man's head off) he 

did not find it affected his esteem. 

As for her person, he liked that too: little evi-


dent immediate prettiness, but a slim, agreeable 

figure and a very fine carriage. She was 

not as beautiful as Diana with her black hair 

and blue eyes, but they both had the same 

straight back, the same thoroughbred grace of 

movement and the same small head held 

high; though in Clarissa's case it was fair. 

Something of the same kind of courage, too: 

he hoped they would be friends. It was true 

that Diana's house contained Brigit, the 

daughter whom Stephen had not yet seen, 

and upon the whole Clarissa disliked children; 

yet Clarissa was a well-bred woman, affectionate 

in her own way, and unless the baby 

or rather little girl by now were quite exceptionally 

disagreeable, which he could not believe, 

she would probably make an exception. 

Bells, bells, bells, and long wandering 

thoughts between them: Martin quiescent. 

Eight bells, and the starbowlines, after a try-


ing watch with frequent trimming of sail, taking 

reefs in and shaking them out, with much 

toil and anxiety over the rain-water, separating 

the foul from the clean, and with very frequent 

soakings, hurried below through the downpour 

to drip more or less dry in their hammocks. 

Jack remained on deck. The wind had slackened 

a little and it was now coming in over 

the frigate's quarter; the sea was less lumpy: if 

this continued, and it was likely to do so, he 

could soon set topgallants. But neither the set 

of the sea nor the wind was his first concern at 

present. During the night they had lost the 

Franklin, and unless they could find her again 

their sweep would be nothing like so efficient; 

besides, with even the remote prospect of an 

action his aim was always to bring a wholly 

decisive force into play. He was scarcely what 

would be called a timid man, but he far pre-


ferred a bloodless battle; often and often he 

had risked his people and his ship, yet never 

when there was a real possibility of having 

such a weight of metal within range that no 

enemy in his right mind would resist – colours 

struck, no blood shed, no harm done, valuable 

powder returned to the magazine, and 

honour saved all round. He was, after all, a 

professional man of war, not a hero. This fellow, 

however, was said to be a pirate. Shelton 

had seen the black flag. And if he was a pirate 

there was likely to be resistance or flight. Yet 

might it not have been that the Jolly Roger was 

hoisted for a cod, or as a way of disarming his 

legitimate privateer's prey by terror? Jack had 

known it done. True piracy was almost unheard 

of in these waters, whatever might be 

the case elsewhere; though some privateers, 

far and far from land, might sometimes overstep 

the mark. And surely no downright pirate


would have let a well-charged whaler go? The 

Surprise cared for neither flight nor fight: but 

still he did not want her scratched, nor any of 

her precious sailcloth and cordage hurt, and 

few sights would be more welcome than the 

Franklin. 

Her top-lantern had vanished during the first 

three squalls of the night, reappearing in her 

due station on the starboard beam as each 

cleared, as much as it did clear in this thick 

weather. Yet after the long-lasting fourth it was 

no longer to be seen. At that time the wind 

was right aft, and this was the one point of 

sailing in which the Franklin, a remarkably 

well-built little craft, could draw away from the 

Surprise'. Tom Pullings, the soul of rectitude, 

would never mean to do so, but with such a 

following sea the log-line was a most fallible 

guide and Jack therefore gazed steadily 

through the murk forward, over the starboard


bow. 

Even the murk was lessening, too: and although 

the southeast was impenetrably black 

with the last squall racing from them there 

were distinct rifts in the cloud astern, with stars 

showing clear. He had a momentary glimpse 

of Rigel Kent just above the crossjack-yard; 

and with Rigel Kent at that height dawn was 

no great way off. 

He also caught sight of Killick by the binnacle, 

holding an unnecessary napkin. 'Mr Wilkins,' 

he said to the officer of the watch, 'I am 

going below. I am to be called if there is any 

change in the wind, or if any sail is sighted.' 

He ran down the companion-ladder and into 

the welcome scent of coffee, the pot sitting 

there in gimbals, under a lantern. He gathered 

his hair – like most of the ship's company he 

wore it long, but whereas the seamen's pigtails


hung straight down behind, Jack's was 

clubbed, doubled back and held with a bow: 

yet all but the few close-cropped men had undone 

their plaits to let their salt-laden hair 

profit from the downpour; and very disagreeable 

they looked, upon the whole, with long 

dank strands plastered about their upper persons, 

bare in this warm rain – he gathered his 

hair, wrung it out, tied it loosely with a handkerchief, 

drank three cups of coffee with intense 

appreciation, ate an ancient biscuit, and 

called for towels. Putting them under his wet 

head he stretched out on the stern locker, 

asked for news of the doctor, heard Killick's 

'Quiet as the grave, sir,' nodded, and went 

straight to sleep in spite of the strong coffee 

and the even stronger thunder of the wavecrests 

torn off by the wind and striking the 

deadlights that protected the flight of sternwindows 

six inches from his left ear.


'Sir, sir,' called a voice in his right ear, a 

tremulous voice, the tall, shy, burly Norton 

sent to wake his commander. 

'What is it, Mr Norton?' 

'Mr Wilkins thinks he may hear gunfire, sir.' 

'Thank you. Tell him I shall be on deck directly.' 

Jack leapt up. He was draining the cold coffee-pot 

when Norton put his head back 

through the door and said, 'Which he sent his 

compliments and duty, too, sir.' 

By the time the Surprise had pitched once, 

with a slight corkscrew roll, Jack was at the 

head of the ladder in the dim half-light. 'Good 

morning, Mr Wilkins,' he said. 'Where away?' 

'On the starboard bow, sir. It might be thunder, 

but I thought...' 

It might well have been thunder, from the 

lightning-shot blackness over there. 'Mast-


head. Oh masthead. What do you see?' 

'Nothing, sir,' called the lookout. 'Black as 

Hell down there.' 

Away to the larboard the sun had risen twenty 

minutes ago. The scud overhead was grey, 

and through gaps in it lighter clouds and even 

whitish sky could be seen. Ahead and on the 

starboard bow all was black indeed: astern, 

quite far astern, all was blacker still. The wind 

had hauled forward half a point, blowing with 

almost the same force; the sea was more 

regular by far – heavy still, but no crosscurrent. 

All those on deck were motionless: some with 

swabs poised, some with buckets and holystones, 

unconscious of their immediate surroundings, 

every man's face turned earnestly, 

with the utmost concentration, to the blueblack 

east-south-east.


A criss-cross of lightning down over there: 

then a low rumble, accompanied by a sharp 

crack or two. Every man looked at his mate, 

as Wilkins looked at his Captain. 'Perhaps,' 

said Jack. 'The arms chests into the half-deck, 

at all events.' 

Minutes, indecisive minutes passed: the 

cleaning of the deck resumed: a work of superogation, 

if ever there was one. Wilkins sent 

two more hands to the wheel, for the squall 

astern was coming up fast in their wake. 'This 

may well be the last,' said Jack, seeing a patch 

of blue right overhead. He walked aft, leant 

over the heaving taffrail and watched the 

squall approach, as dark as well could be and 

lit from within by innumerable flashes, like all 

those that had passed over them that night. 

The blue was utterly banished, the day darkened. 

'Come up the sheets,' he called. 

For the last quarter of a mile the squall was a


distinct entity, sombre purple, sky-tall, curving 

over at the top and with white water all along 

its foot, now covering half the horizon and 

sweeping along at an inconceivable speed for 

such a bulk. 

Then it was upon them. Blinding rain, shattered 

water driving so thick among the great 

heavy drops that one could hardly breathe; 

and the ship, as though given some frightful 

spur, leapt forward in the dark confused turmoil 

of water. 

While the forefront of the squall enveloped 

them and for quite long after its extreme violence 

had passed on ahead, time had little 

meaning; but as the enormous rain dwindled 

to little more than a shower and the wind returned 

to its strong steady southeast course, 

the men at the wheel eased their powerful 

grip, breathing freely and nodding to one another 

and the sodden quartermaster, the


sheets were hauled aft, the ship, jetting rainwater 

from her scuppers, sailed on, accompanied 

for some time by low cloud that thinned 

and thinned and then quite suddenly revealed 

high blue sunlit sky: a few minutes later the 

sun himself heaved out of the lead-coloured 

bank to larboard. This had indeed been the 

last of the series: the Surprise sailed on after it, 

directly in its track as it raced to the southeast, 

covering a vast breadth of sea with its 

darkness. 

On and on, and now with the sun they could 

clearly distinguish the squall's grim front from 

its grey, thinner tail, followed by a stretch of 

brilliant clarity: and at a given moment the 

foremast lookout's screaming hail 'Sail ho! 

Two sail of ships on the starboard bow. On 

deck, there, two sails of ships on the starboard 

bow' brought no news, for they were already 

hull up as the darkness passed over and be-


yond them, suddenly present and clear to 

every man aboard. 

Jack was on his way to the foretop before the 

repetition. He levelled his glass for the first details, 

though the first glance had shown the essence 

of the matter. The nearer ship was the 

four-masted Alastor, wearing the black flag; 

she was grappled tight to the Franklin; they 

were fighting hand to hand on deck and between 

decks and now of course there was no 

gunfire. Small arms, but no cannon. 

'All hands, all hands,' he called. 'Topgallants.' 

He gauged their effect; certainly she could 

bear them and more. From the quarterdeck 

now he called for studdingsails alow and aloft, 

and then for royals. 

'Heave the log, Mr Reade,' he said. He had 

brought the Alastor right ahead, broadside on, 

and in his glass he could see her trying to cast


off, the Franklin resisting the attempt. 

'Ten and one fathom, sir, if you please,'said 

Reade at his side. 

Jack nodded. The grappled ships were some 

two miles off. If nothing carried away he 

should be alongside in ten minutes, for the 

Surprise would gather speed. Tom would hold 

on for ten minutes if he had to do it with his 

teeth. 

'Mr Grainger,' he said, 'beat to quarters.' 

It was the thunder of the drum, the piping 

and the cries down the hatchways, the deep 

growl and thump of guns being run out and 

the hurrying of feet that roused Martin. 'Is that 

you, Maturin?' he whispered, with a terrified 

sideways glance. 

'It is,' said Stephen, taking his wrist. 'Good 

day to you, now.'


'Oh thank God, thank God, thank God,' said 

Martin, his voice broken with the horror of it. 'I 

thought I was dead and in Hell. This terrible 

room. Oh this terrible, terrible room.' 

The pulse was now extremely agitated. The 

patient was growing more so. 'Maturin, my 

wits are astray – I am barely out of a nightlong 

nightmare – forgive me my trespasses to 

you.' 

'If you please, sir,' said Reade, coming in, 'the 

Captain enquires for Mr Martin and desires 

me to tell the Doctor that we are bearing 

down on a heavy pirate engaged with the 

Franklin: there will be some broken omelets 

presently.' 

'Thank you, Mr Reade: Mr Martin is far from 

well.' And calling after him, 'I shall repair to 

my station very soon.' 

'May I come?' cried Martin.


'You may not,' said Stephen. 'You can barely 

stand, my poor colleague, sick as you are.' 

'Pray take me. I cannot bear to be left in this 

room: I hate and dread it. I could not bring 

myself to pass by its door, even. This is where 

I... this is where Mrs Oakes... the wages of sin 

is death... I am rotting here in this life, while in 

the next... Christe eleison.' 

'Kyrie eleison,' said Stephen. 'But listen, Nathaniel, 

will you? You are not rotting as the 

seamen put it: not at all. These are salt-sores: 

they are no more, unless you have taken some 

improper physic. In this ship you could not 

have contracted any infection of that kind. 

There has been no source of infection, 

whether by kissing, toying, drinking in the 

same cup, or otherwise: none whatsoever. I 

state that as a physician.' 

The wind had hauled a little farther forward,


and with her astonishing spread of drum-tight 

canvas the Surprise was now running at such 

a pace that the following seas lapped idly 

alongside. From high aloft Jack made out the 

confused situation with fair certainty: the ships 

were still grappled fast: the Alastors had 

boarded the Franklin's waist but Tom had run 

up stout close-quarters and some of his people 

were holding out behind them while others 

had invaded the Alastor's forecastle and were 

fighting the Frenchmen there. Some of the 

Alastors were still trying to cast off, and still the 

Franklins prevented them – Jack could see the 

bearded Sethians in the furious struggle that 

flung three Frenchmen bodily off the lashed 

bowsprits. Another group of pirates were turning 

one of the Franklin's forward carronades 

aft to blast a way through the close-quarters; 

but the mob of their own men and deadly 

musket-fire from their own forecastle hindered


them, and the carronade ran wild on the rolling 

deck, out of control. 

Jack called down: 'Chasers' crew away. Run 

them out.' He landed on the deck with a 

thump, ran through the eager, attentive, wellarmed 

groups to the bows, where his own 

brass Beelzebub was reaching far out of the 

port. 'Foretopsail,' he said, and they heaved 

the gun round. He and Bonden pointed it with 

grunts and half-words, the whole crew working 

as one man. Glaring along the sights Jack 

pulled the laniard, arched for the gun's recoil 

beneath him and through the bellowing crash 

he roared, 'T'other.' 

The smoke raced away before them, and 

barely was it clear before the other chaser 

fired. Both shots fulfilled their only function, 

piercing the foretopsail they were aimed at, 

dismaying the Alastors – few ships could fire 

so clean – and encouraging the Franklins,


whose cheer could now be heard, though faint 

and thin. 

But these two shots, reverberating through 

the ship's hollow belly, sent poor Martin's 

weakened mind clear off its precarious balance 

and into a delirium. His distress became 

very great, reaching the screaming pitch. 

Stephen quickly fastened him into his cot with 

two bandages and ran towards the sick-berth. 

He met Padeen on his way to tell him that 

quarters had been beaten. 'I know it,' he replied. 

'Go straight along and sit with Mr Martin. 

I shall come back.' 

He returned with the fittest of his patients, a 

recent hernia. 'See that all is well below, 

Padeen,' he said, and when Padeen had gone 

he measured out a powerful dose from his secret 

store of laudanum, the tincture of opium 

to which he and Padeen had once been so 

addicted. 'Now, John,' he said to the seaman,


'hold up his shoulders.' And in pause, 'Nathaniel, 

Nathaniel my dear, here is your draught. 

Down it in one swallow, I beg.' 

The pause drew out. 'Lay him back, lay him 

back gently,' said Stephen. 'He will be quiet 

now, with the blessing. But you will sit with 

him, John, and soothe his mind if he wakes.' 

'Shipmates,' cried Jack from the break of the 

quarterdeck, 'I am going to lay alongside the 

four-master as easy as can be. Some of our 

people are on her forecastle; some of theirs 

are trying to work aft in the Franklin. So as 

soon as we are fast, come along with me and 

we will clear the four-master's waist, then carry 

on to relieve Captain Pullings. But Mr 

Grainger's division will go straight along the 

Alastor's gun-deck to stop them turning awkward 

with their cannon. None of you can go 

wrong if you knock an enemy on the head.'


The seamen – a savage looking crew with 

their long hair still wild about them – the seamen 

cheered, a strangely happy sound as the 

frigate glided in towards those embattled 

ships: roaring shouts, the clash of bitter fighting 

clear and clearer over the narrowing sea. 

He stepped to the wheel, his heavy sword 

dangling from his wrist by a strap and he took 

her shaving in, his heart beating high and his 

face gleaming, until her yards caught in the 

Alastor's shrouds and the ships ground together. 

'Follow me, follow me,' he cried, leaping 

across, and on either side of him there were 

Surprises, swarming over with cutlasses, pistols, 

boarding-axes. Bonden was at his right 

hand, Awkward Davies on his left, already 

foaming at the mouth. The Alastors came at 

them with furious spirit and in the very first 

clash, halfway across the deck, one shot Jack's


hat from his head, the bullet scoring his skull, 

and another, lunging with a long pike, 

brought him down. 

'The Captain's down,' shrieked Davies. He cut 

the pikeman's legs from under him and Bonden 

split his head. Davies went on hacking the 

body as the Franklins came howling down and 

took the Alastors in the flank. 

There was an extremely dense and savage 

mêlée with barely room to strike – cruel blows 

for all that and pistols touching the enemy's 

face. The battle surged forward and back, 

more joined in, forward and back, turning, 

trampling on bodies dead and living, all sense 

of direction lost, a slaughter momentarily interrupted 

by the crash of the Franklin's carronade, 

turned and fired at last, but misfired, 

misaimed so that it killed many of those it was 

meant to help. The remaining Alastors came 

flooding back into their own ship, instantly


pursued by Pullings' men, who cut them down 

from behind while the Surprises shattered them 

from in front and either side, for they had all 

heard the cry 'The Captain's down – they've 

got the Captain' and the fighting reached an 

extraordinary degree of ferocity. 

Presently it was no more than broken men, 

escaping below, screaming as they were 

hunted down and killed: and an awful silence 

fell, only the ships creaking together on the 

dying sea, and the flapping of empty sails. 

A dozen black slaves were found shut in the 

Alastor's orlop, as well as a few wretched little 

rouged and scented boys; and they were put 

to throwing the dead over the side. Long before 

they reached his part of the deck Jack 

Aubrey heaved himself from beneath three 

bodies and one desperately wounded man. 'It 

was as bloody a little set-to as ever I have 

seen,' he said to Pullings, sitting by him on the


coaming, trying to staunch the flow from his 

wound and dabbing at his bloody eye. 'How 

are you, Tom?' he asked again. 'And how is 

the ship?'


SIX 

'It would be only with the greatest reluctance 

that I should consent to leave you,' said 

Stephen, sitting there in the Franklin's cabin. 

'It is most obliging of you to say so, replied 

Jack with a hint of testiness, 'and I take it very 

kindly; but we have been through this many 

times and once again I am obliged to point 

out that you have no choice in the matter. You 

must go into Callao with the others as soon as 

everything is ready.' 

'I do not like your eye, and I do not like your 

leg,' said Stephen. 'As for the scalp-wound, 

though spectacular it is of no great consequence. 

I dare say it will hurt for some weeks


and your hair will go white for an inch or two 

on either side; but I do not think you need fear 

any complications.' 

'It still makes me stupid and fretful at times,' 

said Jack, and then with the slightly false air of 

one who is deliberately changing the subject, 

'Stephen, should Sam come aboard – of 

course it is very unlikely – why should he indeed, 

or even still be in Peru? But should he 

come aboard, pray give him my love, tell him 

that I hope to bring the Franklin in, and that 

we should be very happy if he would dine with 

us. And for the moment, I mean if he should 

come, which I doubt, please ask him what we 

can do with the blacks we took in Alastor. 

They are not seamen in any sense of the term 

and they are really no use to us at all. But they 

were slaves, and Peru is a slave country; so I 

do not like to put them ashore, where they 

may be seized and sold. I particularly dislike it


since having been aboard an English ship they 

are now, as I understand it, free men. Quite 

how this squares with the slave-trade I cannot 

tell, but that is how I understand the law.' 

'Sure, you are right: there was that case in 

Naples, where some slaves came aboard a 

man-of-war and wrapped themselves in the 

ensign. They were never given up. And in any 

case Government abolished the trade in the 

year seven. The law may be disobeyed; slavers 

may still sail. But they do so illegally, since 

Government certainly abolished the vile traffic.' 

'Did they indeed? I was not aware. Where 

were we in the year seven?' He pondered for a 

while on the year seven, tracing back voyage 

after voyage, and then he said, 'By the by, I 

am sending in the Frenchmen who do not 

choose to carry on with us and who are not 

seamanlike enough for us to keep – I prom-


ised to pay them off in Callao, you remember 

– and now I come to think of it there is one in 

this ship' – they were sitting in the cabin of the 

Franklin, to which Jack had removed – 'who 

was an apothecary's assistant in New Orleans. 

He wished to stay, and he might be of some 

use to you, short-handed as you are. Martin 

found him quite helpful, I believe.' 

'Then you must certainly keep him,' said 

Stephen. 

'No,' said Jack in a determined voice. 'Killick 

has looked after me, under your orders, ever 

since before the peace. This man's name is 

Fabien. I shall send him over.' Stephen knew 

that argument would be useless; he said nothing, 

and Jack went on, 'I shall be sending a 

whole parcel of them over, those who wish to 

go.' 

'You would never be sending Dutourd, at all?'


cried Stephen. 

'I had thought of doing so, yes,' said Jack. 

'He sent me a polite little note, asking leave to 

make his adieux, thanking us for our kindness 

and undertaking not to serve again.' 

'From my point of view it might be impolitic,' 

said Stephen. 

Jack looked at him, saw that the matter had 

to do with intelligence and nodded. 'Are there 

any others you would object to?' he asked. 

'Adams will show you a list.' 

'Never a one, my dear,' said Stephen, and he 

looked at the opening door. 

'If you please, sir,' said Reade, 'Captain Pullings 

sends his compliments, and all is laid 

along.' 

'The Doctor will be with you directly,' said 

Captain Aubrey. 

'In five minutes,' said Dr Maturin. He lifted the


bandage over Jack's eye: he looked at the 

pike-wound. 'You must swear by Sophie's head 

to suffer Killick to dress both these places with 

their respective lotions and pommades before 

breakfast, before dinner, and before retiring: I 

have given him precise instructions. Swear.' 

'I swear,' said Jack, holding up his right hand. 

'He will grow absolutely insupportable, as 

usual. And Stephen, pray give Martin my most 

particular compliments. It was noble of him to 

try to come on deck to bury our people: I have 

never seen a man look so like death: gaunt, 

grey, sunken. He could barely stand.' 

'It was not only weakness: he has lost his 

sense of balance entirely. I do not think he will 

regain it. He must leave the sea.' 

'So you told me. Leave the sea... poor fellow, 

poor fellow. But I quite understand; and he 

must certainly go home. Now, brother, your


boat has been hooked on this age. You will 

be much better by yourself for a while. I am 

afraid I have been like a bear in a whore's bed 

these last few days.' 

'Not at all, not at all: quite the reverse.' 

'As for Dutourd, Adams will reply to his note 

saying it is regretted his request cannot be 

complied with and he is required to remain 

aboard the Franklin. Compliments, of course, 

and a civil word about accommodation. And 

Stephen, one last word. Have you any notion 

of how long your business will keep you on 

shore? Forgive me if I am indiscreet.' 

'If it is not over in a month it will not be over 

at all,' said Stephen. 'But I will leave word in 

the ship. God bless, now.' 

The ships were not to part until the sun was 

low, in the first place because Captain Aubrey 

had to speak at some length to the other


commanders and redistribute the crews and in 

the second because he wished to deceive a 

remote sail on the western horizon, a potential 

quarry. He intended this distant ship to suppose 

that an unhurried convoy slowly heading 

east by south, often peaceably gossiping 

alongside, would carry straight on to Callao, 

and he did not intend to make the signal to 

part company until the stranger's topgallants 

were out of sight even from the main jackcrosstrees. 

Long before this time however Dr Maturin 

had to attend to his duties as the frigate's surgeon. 

Having regained the Surprise he stood 

for a while at the taffrail, looking aft along the 

line of ships: the Alastor, thinly manned but 

unharmed in masts and rigging and now almost 

clean; the whaler, in much the same 

case; and the Franklin, her wounded bowsprit 

now repaired with spars from the four-master:


a fine array of yards and canvas, and the kind 

of tail that had so often followed the Surprise, 

that predatory ship, into various ports. 

'I beg pardon, sir,' said Sarah, just behind 

him, 'but Padeen says will you be long at all?' 

After a moment she tugged his coat and 

speaking rather louder said, 'I beg pardon, sir; 

Padeen wonders will you ever be a great while 

surely not for the love of God.' 

'I am with you, child,' said Stephen, gathering 

his wits. 'I thought I heard a sea-lion bark.' He 

plunged down to the sick-berth, tolerably fetid 

still in spite of double windsails, although it 

was not so crowded as it had been in the first 

few days after the battle, when he could hardly 

step between his patients, and they laid here 

and there about the orlop. Padeen, his loblolly-boy, 

was as kind and gentle a creature as 

ever came from Munster, and long use had


not blunted his humanity; he was weeping 

now over a wretched man from the Alastor 

who having fallen out of his cot was lying 

there on his shattered arm, wedged under a 

helpless neighbour and resisting all attempts 

at help by clinging with maniac force to a 

ring-bolt. He was indeed out of his mind, not 

only because of the terrifying end of the battle 

and the horrible future, but also because his 

fever had now almost drowned what little reason 

he had left. However, what Padeen's kindness 

and great though cautious strength and 

the little girls' expostulation could not do, Dr 

Maturin's cool authority accomplished, and 

with the wretched man restored to his bed, 

fastened to it, his hopeless wound re-dressed, 

Stephen began his long and weary round. 

There had been few survivors from the Alastor 

and of those few three had already died of 

their injuries; most of the rest swore they were


prisoners, and certainly they had taken no part 

in the fight, having crammed themselves unarmed 

into the manger or the forepeak. 

All the others were his shipmates, men he 

had known and liked for many voyages, 

sometimes for as long as he had been in the 

Navy. Bonden's great cutlass-slash, which had 

called for such anxious sewing, was doing 

well, but there were cases where he saw the 

probable necessity for resection – foresaw it 

and its dangers with a grief increased by the 

seamen's total, unfounded confidence in his 

powers, and by their gratitude for his treatment. 

A wearing round, and it should have been 

followed by his visits forward, to the little 

berths where the warrant-officers slept: Mr 

Smith, the gunner, was not aboard the Franklin 

and Stephen had put Mr Grainger into his 

place, as more suitable for a wounded man


than his official cabin aft. He was on his way 

there, accompanied by Sarah carrying basin, 

lint, bandages, when as they passed through 

the checkered shafts of daylight coming down 

from the deck they heard the call, 'Signal for 

parting company, sir,' and Pullings' reply, 'Acknowledge 

and salute.' 

'Oh sir,' cried Sarah, 'may we run up and 

look?' 

'Very well,' said Stephen, 'But put down your 

basin and the lint, and walk soberly.' 

The ships separated with the smooth inevitability 

of a sea-parting, slow at first, still within 

calling-distance, and then, if one's attention 

were distracted for a few moments by a bird, a 

floating patch of seaweed, the gap had grown 

to a mile and one's friends' faces were no 

longer to be made out, for with the warm 

steady southerly breeze ships sailing in oppo-


site directions drew apart at fifteen or sixteen 

knots, even with no topgallants abroad. 

The Franklin, Captain Aubrey, headed west 

to cruise upon the enemy until he should hear 

that the Surprise had been docked and was 

now fit for a passage of the Horn, that the 

prizes had been disposed of, and above all 

that Stephen, having accomplished what he 

had set out to do, was ready to go home. The 

Franklin would, he hoped with reasonable 

confidence, send in prizes from time to time; 

but in any event he had a fine half-decked 

schooner-rigged launch belonging to the Alastor 

that could be dispatched from well out in 

the offing to fetch stores and news from Callao. 

The Surprise, Captain Pullings, on the other 

hand, stood a little south of east for Peru, 

whose prodigious mountains were already 

said to be visible from the masthead and


whose strange cold north-flowing current was 

undoubtedly present; and in duty bound her 

two prizes sailed after her, each at two cable's 

lengths. 

The sun set, with the Franklin clear on the horizon, 

and it left a golden sky of such beauty 

that Stephen felt a constriction in his throat. 

Sarah too was moved but she said nothing 

until they were below again, when she observed, 

'I shall say seven Hail Marys every day 

until we see them again.' 

The bosun was their first patient. He had 

gone aboard the Alastor roaring drunk, and 

there pursuing a pair of enemies into the 

maintop he had fallen, landing in the waist of 

the ship on to a variety of weapons. He was a 

mass of cuts and abrasions: yet it was a great 

wrench where his leg had caught in the catharpins 

that kept him from his duty. He was 

drunk again now, and he endeavoured to dis-


guise his state by saying as little as possible, 

and that very carefully, and by directing his 

breath down towards the deck. They dressed 

his many places, Sarah with something less 

than her habitual tenderness – she hated 

drunkenness and her disapproval filled the little 

cabin, making the bosun simper in a nervous, 

placating manner – and when he was 

bound up they parted, Sarah to go back to the 

sick-berth and Stephen to call on Mr 

Grainger, who had been brought down by a 

musket-shot: the ball had followed one of 

those strange indirect courses so unlike the 

path of a rifle-bullet and after a prolonged 

search Stephen had found it lodged, visibly 

pulsating, just in contact with the subclavian 

artery. The wound was healing prettily, and 

Stephen congratulated Grainger on having 

flesh as clean and sweet as a child's; yet although 

the patient smiled and made a hand-


some acknowledgement of the Doctor's care it 

was plain that he had something on his mind. 

'Vidal came over from the Franklin to see me 

a little while ago,' he said, 'and he was in a 

great taking about Mr Dutourd. He had heard 

that Mr D's request to be sent in to Callao with 

the other Frenchmen had been refused. As 

you know, Vidal and his friends think the world 

of Mr Dutourd; they admire his sentiments on 

freedom and equality and no tithes – no interference 

with worship. Freedom! See how he 

spoke up for those poor unfortunate blacks 

out of the Alastor, offering to pay the Jamaica 

price out of his own pocket for their liberty, 

pay it down on the capstan-head for the general 

prize-fund.' 

'Did he, indeed?' 

'Yes, sir, he did. So Vidal and his relations – 

most of the Knipperdollings are cousins in


some degree or another – are most uneasy at 

the thought of his being taken back to England 

and perhaps taken up before the Admiralty 

Court on a point of law and ending up at 

Execution Dock, hanged for a pirate, just because 

he did not have a piece of paper. Mr 

Dutourd a pirate? It makes no sense, Doctor. 

Those wicked men in the Alastor were pirates, 

not Mr Dutourd. They were the sort of people 

you see hanging in chains at Tilbury Point, a 

horrid warning to them as sails by; not Mr 

Dutourd, who is a learned man, and who 

loves his fellow-beings.' 

Grainger's drift was clear enough, and he 

could not be allowed to reach a direct request. 

Stephen had the medical man's recourse: 

during a pause for emphasis he desired 

Grainger to hold his breath, took his 

pulse, and having counted it, watch in hand, 

he said, 'Do you know we parted company an


hour ago? I must go and tell Mr Martin: with 

this breeze I understand we should be in quite 

soon, and I should like to set him on dry land 

as early as possible.' 

'Parted company so soon?' cried Grainger. 'I 

never knew; nor did Vidal when he spoke to 

me this morning.' Then recovering himself, 'Mr 

Martin, of course. Pray give the poor gentleman 

my kind good-day. We were right moved 

to hear he had tried to creep on deck to bury 

our shipmates.' 

'Nathaniel Martin,' said Stephen, 'I am sorry 

to have left you so long untended.' 

'Not at all, not at all,' cried Martin. 'That 

good Padeen has been by, Emily brought me 

a cup of tea, and I have slept much of the 

time: I am indeed very much better.' 

'So I see,' said Stephen, bringing his lantern


down to look into Martin's face. He then 

turned back the sheet. 'The disorders of the 

skin,' he observed, gently feeling the ugliest lesion, 

'are perhaps the most puzzling in all 

medicine. Here is a sensible diminution within 

hours.' 

'I slept as I have not slept for – for Heaven 

knows how long, my body lying peacefully at 

last: no incessant irritation, no pain from the 

slightest pressure, no perpetual turning in vain 

for ease.' 

'There is nothing to be done without sleep,' 

said Stephen, and he continued with his examination. 

'Yet,' said he, replacing the sheet, 'I 

shall be glad to set you on shore. Your skin 

may well be on the mend, but I am not at all 

satisfied with your heart or your lungs or your 

elimination; and from what you tell me the 

vertigo is as bad as ever, even worse. Firm 

land under foot may do wonders; and a vege-


table diet. The same is to be said for several 

of our patients.' 

'We have so often known it to be the case,' 

said Martin. 'In parenthesis, may I tell you a 

strange thing? Some hours ago, as I was coming 

out of a blessed doze, I thought I heard a 

sea-lion bark, and my heart lifted with happiness, 

as it did when I was a boy, or even in 

New South Wales. How close are we to the 

shore?' 

'I cannot tell, but they said before we parted 

company – for the Captain is standing to the 

westward: he leaves you his particular compliments 

– that the Cordillera was distinctly to 

be seen from the masthead; and there may 

well be some rocky islands close at hand 

where sea-lions live. For my own part I have 

seen a file of pelicans, and they are not birds 

to go far from land.'


'Very true. But pray tell me about the present 

state of the sick-berth. I am afraid you have 

been cruelly overworked.' 

They talked for a while about the recent incised, 

lacerated, punctured and gun-shot 

wounds, the fractures simple, compound or 

comminuted that had come below, and 

Stephen's success or failure in dealing with 

them, speaking in an objective, professional 

manner. In a less detached tone Martin asked 

after the Captain. 'It is the eye that troubles 

me,' said Stephen. 'The pike-thrust is healing 

by first intention; the head-wound, though its 

stunning effect is still evident to a slight degree, 

is of no consequence; nor is the loss of 

blood. But the eye received the wad of the pistol-bullet 

that tore his scalp, a thick, gritty, 

partially disintegrated wad. I extracted many 

fragments and I believe there was no grave 

scoring of the cornea nor of course any pene-


tration. But there is great and persistent hyperaemia 

and lachrymation...' He was about 

to say that 'such a patient was not to be relied 

upon – would double doses – would swallow 

them together with any quack panacea – 

would listen to the first cow-leech he might 

encounter', but he restrained himself and their 

conversation returned to the sick-berth as 

Martin had left it, to their old patients. 

'And how are Grant and MacDuff?' asked 

Martin. 

'Those who had the Vienna treatment? Grant 

died just before the action, and clearly I did 

not have time to open him: but I strongly suspect 

the corrosive sublimate. MacDuff is well 

enough for light duties, though his constitution 

is much shattered; I doubt his full recovery.' 

After a pause, and in an altered voice, Martin 

said, 'I must tell you that I too took the Vienna


treatment.' 

'In what dose?' 

'I could find nothing in our authorities, so I 

based myself on the amount we used for our 

calomel draughts.' 

Stephen said nothing. The bolder Austrian 

physicians might administer a quarter of a 

grain of the sublimate: the usual dose of 

calomel was four. 

'Perhaps I was rash,' said Martin. 'But I was 

desperate; and the calomel and guaiacum 

seemed to do no good.' 

'They could not cure a disease you did not 

have,' said Stephen. 'But in any event I shall be 

glad to have you in hospital, where you can 

with something like decency and comfort be 

purged and purged again. We must do everything 

possible to rid your system of this noxious 

substance.'


'I was desperate,' said Martin, his mind fixed 

on that dreadful past. 'I was unclean, unclean: 

rotting alive, as the seamen say. A shameful 

death. And I think my mind was disturbed. Until 

you absolutely asserted that these were saltsores 

I was wholly convinced that they were of 

sinful origin: you will admit they were very like. 

They were very like, were they not?' 

'When they had been exacerbated by an immoderate 

use of mercury, perhaps they were; 

though I doubt an impartial observer would 

have been deceived.' 

'The wicked fleeth where no man pursueth,' 

said Martin. 'Dear Marturin, I have been a 

very wicked fellow. In intention I have been a 

very wicked fellow.' 

'You must spend the night in drinking fresh 

rainwater,' said Stephen. 'Every time you wake, 

you must swallow down a glass at least, to get


rid of all you can. Padeen will bring you a 

rack of necessary-bottles and I trust I shall see 

them filled by morning: but I cannot wait to 

get you ashore and to start more radical 

measures; for indeed, colleague, there is not 

a moment to lose.' 

There was not a moment to be lost, and 

happily the harbour formalities in Callao bay 

did not take long, the Surprise and her valuable 

train being so welcome to the agent, who 

had dealt with her prizes on the outward voyage, 

and to his brother, the captain of the 

port: as soon as they were over Stephen went 

ashore pulled by Jemmy Ducks in his little 

skiff. Well over on the left hand they passed a 

remarkable amount of shipping for so small a 

town: vessels from Chile, Mexico and farther 

north, and at least two China ships. 'Right on 

our beam, beyond the yellow schooner, in the 

dockyard itself, that must be the barque from


Liverpool,' said Jemmy. 'They are busy in her 

tops.' 

It was high tide on the dusty strand, and as 

Stephen walked up it towards an archway in 

the wall a gritty cloud swept across from the 

earthquake-shattered ruins of Old Callao. 

When it had cleared he saw a group of illlooking 

men of all colours from black to dirty 

yellow standing under the shelter. 'Gentlemen,' 

he said in Spanish, 'pray do me the kindness 

of pointing out the hospital.' 

'Your worship will find it next to the Dominican 

church,' said a brown man. 

'Sir, sir, it is just before Joselito's warehouse,' 

cried a black. 

'Come with me,' said a third. He led Stephen 

through the tunnel into an immense unpaved 

square with dust whirling in eddies about it. 

'There is the Governor's house,' he said, point-


ing back to the seaward end of the square. 'It 

is shut. On the right hand,' he went on, holding 

out his left, 'your worship has the Viceroy's 

palace: it too is closed.' 

They turned. In the middle of the square 

three black and white vulturine scavengers 

with a wingspan of about six feet were disputing 

the dried remains of a cat. 'What do you 

call those?' asked Stephen. 

'Those?' replied his guide, looking at them 

with narrowed eyes. 'Those are what we call 

birds, your worship. And there, before 

Joselito's warehouse, is the hospital itself.' 

Stephen looked at it with some concern, a 

low building with very small barred windows, 

the flat mud roof barely a hand's reach from 

the filthy ground. Prudent, no doubt in a country 

so subject to earthquakes, but as a hospital 

it left to be desired.


'The hospital, with a hundred people at the 

least, lying on beds raised a good span from 

the ground. And there I see a vile heretic coming 

out of it, with his countryman.' 

'Which? The little small fat yellow-haired gentleman, 

who staggers so?' 

'No, no, no. He is an old and mellow Christian 

– your honour too is an old and mellow 

Christian, no doubt?' 

'None older; few more mellow.' 

'A Christian though English. He is the great 

lawyer come to lecture the university of Lima 

on the British constitution. His name is Raleigh, 

don Curtius Raleigh: you have heard of 

him. He is drunk. I must run and fetch his 

coach.' 

'He has fallen.' 

'Clearly. It is the tall black-haired villain who 

is picking him up, the surgeon of the Liverpool


ship, that is the heretic. I must run.' 

'Do not let me detain you, sir. Pray accept 

this trifle.' 

'God will repay your worship. Farewell, sir. 

May no new thing arise.' 

'May no new thing arise,' replied Stephen. 

With his pocket spy-glass he watched the birds 

for a while, their name hovering on the edge 

of his mind. Presently, as don Curtius' coach 

rolled into the square, silent on the dust, they 

flew off, one carrying the desiccated cat, and 

the other snatching at it. They flew inland, towards 

Lima, a splendid-looking white-towered 

city five or six miles away with an infinitely 

more splendid series of mountains behind it, 

rising higher and higher in the distance, their 

snow at last blending with the white sky and 

the clouds. 

The carriage rolled away, drawn by six


mules, don Curtius singing Greensleeves. 

Stephen approached the remaining Englishman, 

took off his hat, and said, 'Francis 

Geary, a very good day to you, sir.' 

'Stephen Maturin! I thought for a moment it 

looked like you, but my spectacles are covered 

with dust.' He took them off and peered 

myopically at his friend. 'What happiness to 

see you! What joy to find a Christian in this 

barbarous land!' 

'You are just come out of the hospital, I find.' 

'Yes, indeed. One of my people – I am surgeon 

of The Three Graces – has what looks to 

me very like the marthambles, and I wished to 

isolate him, under proper care, until it declares 

itself, rather than infect the whole ship. 

It is as deadly as measles or the smallpox to 

islanders, and we have many of them aboard. 

But no. They would not hear of it. So I went to


see Mr Raleigh, who had travelled out with us, 

and who is a Roman, in case he could persuade 

them – he lectures on law at the university: 

an influential man. But no, no and no. 

They gave him a bottle or two of excellent 

wine, as I dare say you noticed, but they 

would not yield. On the way from Lima he told 

me that he did not expect to succeed, their 

memory of the buccaneers, the sacking of 

churches and so on being so very vivid; and 

he was right, I suppose. At all events they do 

not choose to have anything to do with me or 

my patient.' 

'Then I am afraid my case is hopeless, for my 

patient is not only a Protestant but a clergyman 

too. Come and drink a cup of coffee with 

me.' 

'I should be very happy. But your case would 

have been hopeless had he been the Pope. 

The place is so low and airless and fetid, the


numbers so great and indiscriminately heaped 

upon one another, that they would never have 

left your parson there.' 

Geary and Maturin had studied medicine together: 

they had shared a skeleton and several 

unclaimed victims of the Liffey or the 

Seine. Now, as they sat in the shade, drinking 

coffee, they spoke with the uninhibited directness 

of medical men. 'My patient,' said 

Stephen, 'is also my assistant. He was as devoted 

to natural philosophy as you, particularly 

to birds, and although he had followed 

no regular course, attended no lectures, 

walked no wards, he became a useful surgeon's 

mate by constant attendance in the 

sick-berth and frequent dissection; and since 

he was a well-read, cultivated man, he was 

also an agreeable companion. Unhappily, he 

recently came to suspect that he had contracted 

a venereal disease, and when during


an exceptionally long period without fresh water 

to wash our clothes he developed saltsores, 

he thought his suspicions were confirmed: 

it is true that his mind was very much 

perturbed at the time for reasons that it would 

be tedious to relate and almost impossible to 

convey – the distress of jealousy, imagined illusage 

and homesickness entered into it – and 

that his lesions were far more important than 

any I have seen at any time. Yet even so, how 

a man of his experience could persuade himself 

that they were syphilitic I cannot tell; but 

persuaded he was, and he dosed himself privately 

with calomel and guaiacum. Naturally 

enough these had no effect; so he took to the 

corrosive sublimate.' 

'Corrosive sublimate?' cried Geary. 

'Yes, sir,' said Stephen, 'and in such amounts 

that I hesitate to name them. He brought himself 

very low indeed before he told me: our re-


lations were by then far from cordial, though 

there remained a deep latent affection. Fresh 

water, the proper lotions and a conviction that 

he was not diseased have improved the state 

of his skin remarkably, but the effects of this 

intolerable deal of sublimate remains. Young 

gentlewoman,' he called towards the dim recesses 

of the wine-shop, 'be so good as to 

prepare me a ball of coca-leaves.' 

'With lime, sir?' 

'By all means; and a trifle of llipta too, if you 

have it.' 

'What are the symptoms at this point?' asked 

Geary. 

'Strongly marked vertigo, perhaps aggravated 

by the loss of an eye some years ago; difficulty 

in following the sequence of letters; some degree 

of mental confusion and distress; great 

physical weakness of course; a most irregular


pulse; chaotic defecation. Thank you, my dear' 

– this to the girl with the coca-leaves. 

They carried on with Martin's present state, 

and when Stephen had said all that occurred 

to him without reference to his notes Geary 

asked, 'Is there on the one hand a difficulty in 

telling right from left, and on the other a certain 

loss of hair?' 

'There is,' said Stephen: he stopped chewing 

and looked attentively at his friend. 

'I have known two similar cases, and in Vienna 

itself I heard of several more.' 

'Did you hear of cures, at all?' 

'Certainly. Both my men walked away from 

the hospital unaided, one quite well, the other 

with only a slight impediment: though in his 

case there had been a baldness of the entire 

person and loss of nails, which Birnbaum cites 

as the criterion; but the treatment was long


and delicate. What do you intend to do with 

your patient?' 

'I am at a loss. My ship is about to be 

docked, and he cannot remain aboard. I had 

hoped to find him a room in the hospital until 

I could arrange for his passage home in a 

merchantman: we may cruise for a great 

while, and in any case a privateer is no place 

for an invalid. Perhaps Lima...' Stephen fell silent. 

'When you speak of a passage,' said Geary, 'I 

presume the gentleman is not the usual indigent 

surgeon's mate?' 

'Never in life. He is an Anglican clergyman 

with two livings; and he has done well in 

prize-money. If you were to look into the bay 

you would see two captured ships, a clearlydetermined 

share of which belongs to him.' 

'I say this only because our captain, a para-


gon of nautical virtue and of many others, is 

answerable to his owners, insatiable men who 

know nothing of charity or good-will. Yet since 

there is no question of either, why does not 

your patient sail in The Three Graces'? We 

have two empty state-rooms amidships; and 

she is a remarkably steady ship.' 

'This is very precipitate, Francis Geary,' said 

Stephen. 

'So it is,' replied Geary, 'but the voyage itself 

will be tranquil and deliberate: Captain Hill 

very rarely spreads royals; we are to touch at 

Iquique and Valparaiso and perhaps at another 

port in Chile – so many pauses for refreshment 

on shore – and we are to prepare 

ourselves at the entrance to the Magellan 

Straits at the very best time of the year for the 

eastward passage. Captain Hill does not 

choose to risk his owners' spars off the Horn: 

furthermore, he is an acknowledged expert on


the intricate navigation of the channel – has 

threaded it again and again. It would be infinitely 

more suitable for a man in a delicate 

state of health. Will you not come with me and 

look at the ship?' 

'If you please, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, 'the 

tide is on the turn: which we ought to shove 

off directly.' 

'Jemmy Ducks,' said Stephen, 'when you have 

drank a moderate dram, you shove off by 

yourself. I am going to walk to the dockyard to 

see the Liverpool ship.' 

'My dear love to you, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, 

lowering a quarter of a pint of Peruvian 

brandy without a wink, 'and my duty to the 

gentleman.' 

As they walked back from the tall headland 

from which they had waved to The Three


Graces for a great while as she sailed away 

into the south-west, Stephen, Padeen and the 

little girls were low in their spirits, mute. It was 

not that the tropical day was oppressive, for 

an agreeable breeze blew in from the sea, but 

the dry hard pale-yellow ground under foot 

had nothing whatsoever growing on it, no life 

of any kind, and the arid sterility had a saddening 

effect on minds already disappointed. 

The distance to their lofty cliff had been 

greater than they thought, their pace slower; 

the Liverpool ship was already clear of the 

coast by the time they got there, and even with 

Stephen's spy-glass they could not be sure they 

had seen Martin, though he had gone aboard 

with no more than a hand to help him over 

the gangway and had promised to sit there by 

the taffrail. 

In silence they walked, therefore, with the 

ocean on their left and the Andes on their


right, both admittedly majestic, indeed sublime, 

but perhaps beyond all human measure, 

at least to those who were sad, hungry and intolerably 

dry; and it was not until their stark 

plateau fell abruptly away, showing the green 

valley of the Rimac far below, with Lima apparently 

quite close at hand, sharply defined 

by its walls, and in the other direction Callao, 

the busy port, the dockyard and the exactly 

squared town, that they came to sudden 

cheerful life, calling out to one another 'There 

is Lima, there is Callao, there is the ship, poor 

thing' – for to their astonishment she was already 

in the yard, stripped to the gant-line and 

partially heaved down – 'And there,' cried 

Sarah, pointing to the shipping along the 

mole, 'there is the Franklin's handmaiden.' 

'You mean tender,' said Emily. 

'Jemmy Ducks says handmaiden,' replied 

Sarah.


'Sir, sir,' cried Emily, 'she means the Alastor's 

big schooner-rigged launch, lying there next 

to the Mexico ship.' 

'With the barky all sideways, will there ever be 

tea?' asked Padeen, with quite extraordinary 

fluency for him. 

'There will certainly be tea,' said Stephen, and 

he stepped forward briskly to the path winding 

down the slope. 

He was mistaken, however. The Surprise was 

in far too much of a hullaballoo for any form 

of quiet enjoyment. The word that she might 

be heaved down without waiting for her turn 

had reached Tom Pullings only after Stephen 

set out, and he and the carpenter and the only 

valid bosun's mate were already as busy as 

bees among the port's stores of copper, cordage, 

ship's timber and paint, with Jack's words 

'Spend and spare not' in their ears when the


launch appeared, sent in to carry out a large 

number of men for the short-handed Franklin. 

'We had foreseen it, in course,' said Pullings, 

receiving Stephen on the sloping deck, 'The 

Captain would not have had enough people 

to send a prize in, else. But it came at an 

awkward moment, before we could arrange 

for a gang of dockyard mateys. As soon as I 

heard we could dock well before our time, I 

hauled alongside the Alastor and shifted all 

your things and the sick-berth into her: and 

then when we were in dock and barely half 

stripped, the launch brought her orders and 

everything had to be changed. She also 

brought a hand by the name of Fabien, who 

belonged to the Franklin and who helped Mr 

Martin when he was aboard; the Captain had 

meant to send him across before we parted 

company, but he forgot. Oh, Doctor,' he 

cried, striking his forehead, 'here am I, forget-


ting likewise – when we were all ahoo a clergyman 

came aboard, the same that we saw 

on the way out; the gentleman very like the 

Captain, only rather darker. He had heard the 

Captain was wounded – was much concerned 

– enquired for you – said he would come 

again at noon tomorrow – begged for paper 

and ink and left you this note.' 

'Thank you, Tom,' said Stephen. 'I shall read 

it aboard the Alastor. May I beg for a boat? 

And perhaps the man the Captain sent might 

come with us.' 

In the Alastor's great cabin, now thoroughly 

clean at last and smelling only of sea-water, 

tar and fresh paint – there had been a truly 

shocking carnage – Stephen sat drawing in 

sips of scalding tea, a drink he ordinarily despised, 

though not as much as he despised 

Grimshaw's coffee, but one that he found 

comforting after the high Peruvian desert; and


as he did so he re-read the note. 

My dear Sir, 

When I came back from a retreat with 

Benedictines of Huangay last night I 

heard that the Surprise had put into Callao 

once more, and I had great hopes 

of news of you and of Captain Aubrey. 

But on sending to your agent in the 

morning it appeared that although he 

had indeed been aboard her he was 

now in the captured American privateer 

Franklin: at the same time to my consternation 

I learnt that he had been 

wounded in taking the infamous Alastor. 

I hurried down to the port at once 

where Captain Pullings reassured me to 

some degree and told me of your very 

welcome presence.


I propose therefore to do myself the 

honour of waiting on you at noon tomorrow, 

to assure you that I remain, 

dear Sir, your most humble, obliged, 

and obedient servant, 

Sam Panda 

Neither Jack nor Sam acknowledged the relationship 

in so many words but it was clearly 

understood by both, as it was by all those 

members of the crew who had first seen the 

younger man come aboard the Surprise in the 

West Indies: it was indeed obvious to anyone 

who saw them together, for Sam, borne by a 

Bantu girl after Jack had left the Cape station, 

was an ebony-black version of his father: 

somewhat larger, if anything. Yet there were 

differences. Jack Aubrey neither looked nor 

sounded sharply intelligent unless he were 

handling a ship, fighting a battle, or speaking


of navigation: in fact he also possessed uncommon 

mathematical powers and had read 

papers on nutation to the Royal Society; but 

this did not appear in his ordinary conversation. 

Sam, on the other hand, had been 

brought up by singularly learned Irish missionaries; 

his command of languages, ancient and 

modern, did the Fathers infinite credit; and he 

had read voraciously. Stephen, a Catholic 

himself with a certain amount of influence in 

Rome, had procured him the dispensation 

necessary for a bastard to be ordained priest, 

and now Sam was doing remarkably well in 

the Church: it was said that he might soon become 

a prelate, not only because at present 

there were no black monsignori – some yellowish 

or quite dark brown, to be sure, but 

none of such a wholehearted gleaming black 

as Sam – but also because of his patristic 

learning and his exceptional and evident abili-


ties. 

'I look forward to seeing him,' said Stephen; 

and after a pause in which he drank yet another 

cup of tea, 'I believe I shall walk along 

the road to Lima and meet him half way. Who 

knows but what I may see a condor?' He 

hailed William Grimshaw, Killick's mate, who 

had been detached to look after him, in spite 

of the fact that Tom Pullings had a perfectly 

good steward of his own. 'William Grimshaw,' 

he said, 'pray desire the Franklin the Captain 

sent to step below.' And when the Franklin appeared, 

a tall, thin, nervous young man with 

receding hair, he went on, 'Fabien, sit down 

on that locker. I understand you were an 

apothecary's assistant in New Orleans – but 

first tell me which language you speak more 

readily.' 

'They are much the same, sir,' said Fabien. 'I 

was apprenticed to a horse-leech in Charles-


ton when I was a boy.' 

'Very well. Now I understand you helped Mr 

Martin when he was aboard your ship.' 

'Yes, sir. Since the surgeon and his mate were 

both killed I was all he could find.' 

'But I am sure you were very useful to him, 

with your experience as an apothecary: indeed 

I seem to remember his mentioning you with 

commendation, before he grew so ill.' 

'It did not amount to much, sir: most of my 

time in the shop I spent skinning or stuffing 

birds, or drawing them, or colouring plates. 

Yet I did learn to make up the usual prescriptions 

– blue and black draught – and I did 

help Monsieur Duvallier in his practice – just 

the simple things.' 

'In New Orleans, is it customary for apothecaries 

to stuff birds?' 

'No, sir. Some like to have rattlers in the win-


dow or a baby in spirits, but we were the only 

one with birds. Monsieur Duvallier had a 

school-friend who engraved them and he 

wanted to compete with him, so when he 

found me drawing a turkey-buzzard and then 

setting it up, he offered me a place.' 

'The horse-leech's calling did not please you?' 

'Well, sir, he had a daughter.' 

'Ah.' Stephen made himself a ball of leaves 

and said, 'No doubt you were well acquainted 

with the birds of your country?' 

'I read what I could find to read – Bartram, 

Pennant and Barton – but it did not amount to 

much; yet still and all,' – smiling – 'I reckon I 

had an egg and some feathers of every bird 

that nested within twenty miles of New Orleans 

or Charleston; and drawings of them.' 

'That must have interested Mr Martin.' 

Fabien's smile left him. 'They did at first, sir,'


he said, 'but then he seemed not to care. The 

drawings were not very good, I guess. Monsieur 

Audubon took little notice of them – said 

they were not lively enough – and Monsieur 

Cuvier never answered when my master sent 

two or three he had touched up.' 

'I should like to see some when we are at leisure; 

but at present I still have a few patients 

in the sick-berth. My engagements may take 

me away from the ship, and until I have made 

proper arrangements for them on shore I 

should like to leave a man aboard to whom I 

can send instructions. There are no longer any 

urgent cases: it is a matter of changing dressings 

and administering physic at stated intervals. 

I have an excellent loblolly-boy, but although 

he understands English quite well he 

speaks little, and all the less in that he has a 

severe stammer; and he can neither read nor 

write. On the other hand he has a great gift


for nursing, and he is much loved by the people. 

I should add that he is enormously strong, 

and although mansuetude, although gentleness 

is written on his face, he is capable of 

terrible rage if he is provoked. To offend him, 

and thus to offend his friends, in a ship like 

this would be mortal folly. Come with me till I 

show you our sick-berth. There are only three 

amputations left, and they are in a very fair 

way, they will need dressing for a week or two 

more, and some physic and lotions written on 

a sheet with their times. You will meet Padeen 

there, and I am sure you will conciliate his 

good will.' 

'I certainly shall, sir. Anything for a quiet life is 

my motto.' 

'And yet you were in a privateer.' 

'Yes, sir. I was running away from a young 

woman: the same as when I left the Charles-


ton horse-leech.' 

The road to Lima ran between great irrigated 

mud-walled fields of sugar-cane, cotton, alfalfa, 

Indian corn, and past carob-groves, with 

here and there bananas, oranges and lemons 

in all their variety; and where the sides of the 

valley rose, some distant vines. At times it followed 

the deep-cut bank of the Rimac, now a 

fine great roaring torrent from the snows that 

could be seen a great way off, and here were 

palms, strangely interspersed with fine great 

willows of a kind Stephen had not seen before. 

Few birds, apart from an elegant tern 

that patrolled the quieter side-pools of the 

river, and few flowers: this was the dry season 

of the year, and except where the innumerable 

irrigation-channels flowed nothing but a grey 

wiry grass was to be seen. 

There was a good deal of traffic: casks and


bales travelling up from the port or down to it 

in ox – or mule-drawn wagons that brought 

the Spain of his youth vividly to mind – the 

same high-crested yokes, the same crimson, 

brass-studded harness, the same ponderous 

creaking wheels. Some few horsemen, some 

people sitting on asses, more going by foot: 

short, strong Indians with grave or expressionless 

copper faces, sometimes bowed under 

enormous burdens; some rare Spaniards; 

many black Africans; and every possible combination 

of the three, together with additions 

from visiting ships. All these people called out 

a greeting as they passed, or told him that 'it 

was dry, dry, intolerably dry'; all except the Indians, 

who went by mute, unsmiling. 

It was Stephen's custom, particularly when he 

was walking in a flat country, to turn his face 

to the zenith every furlong or so, in order not 

to miss birds soaring above the ordinary range


of vision. When he had been walking for an 

hour he did this again after a longer pause 

than usual and to his infinite delight he saw no 

less than twelve condors wheeling and wheeling 

high in the pale sky between him and 

Lima. He walked a few paces more, sat on a 

mile-stone and fixed them with his pocketglass. 

No possibility of error: enormous birds: 

not perhaps as wide as the wandering albatross 

but more massive by far – a different 

kind of flight, a different use of the air entirely. 

Perfect flight, perfect curves: never a movement 

of those great wings. Round and round, 

rising and falling, rising and rising still until at 

the top of their spiral they glided away in a 

long straight line towards the north-east. 

He walked on with a smile of pure happiness 

on his face; and presently, just after he had 

passed a posada where carts and wagons 

stood under the shade of carob-trees while


their drivers drank and rested, he felt his smile 

return of its own accord: there on the road 

ahead was a tall black horse carrying a taller, 

blacker rider at a fine easy trot towards Callao. 

At the same moment the trot changed to 

a brisk canter, and a yard from Stephen Sam 

leapt from the saddle, his own smile still 

broader. 

They embraced and walked slowly along, 

each asking the other how he did, the horse 

gazing into their faces with some curiosity. 

'But tell me, sir, how is the Captain?' 

'His main being is well, thanks be to God–' 

'Thanks be to God.' 

' – but he had the wad of a pistol in his eye. 

The bullet itself rebounded from his skull – a 

certain concussion – a certain passing forgetfulness 

– no more. But the wad set up an inflammation 

that had not yet quite yielded to


treatment by the time I left him – by the time 

he ordered me to leave him. And he had a 

pike-thrust in the upper part of his thigh that is 

probably healed by now, though I wish I could 

be assured of it... But before I forget, he sends 

his love, says he hopes to bring the Franklin, 

his present ship, into Callao quite soon, and 

trusts that you will dine with him.' 

'Oh how I hope we shall see him well,' cried 

Sam. And after a moment, 'But my dear sir, 

will you not mount? I will hold the stirrup for 

you; he is a quiet, gentle horse with an easy 

walk on him.' 

'I will not,' said Stephen, 'though he is the 

dear kind creature, I am sure,' – stroking the 

horse's nose. 'Listen: there is a little small shebeen 

two minutes back along the road. If you 

are not desperate for time, let you put him up 

in the shelter there and return to Callao with 

me. There is nothing to touch walking for con-


versation. Reflect upon it, my dear: me 

perched up on this high horse, and he is seventeen 

hands if he is an inch, calling down to 

you, and yourself looking up all the while like 

Toby listening to the Archangel Raphael – edifying, 

sure, but it would never do.' 

Sam left not only his horse but his black clerical 

hat, disagreeably hot through the beaver 

with the sun reaching its height, and they 

walked along with an agreeable ease. 'There 

is another thing that the Captain wished to 

speak to you about,' said Stephen. 'Among 

other prizes we took a pirate, the Alastor: she 

is in the port at this moment. Most of her crew 

were killed in the desperate fighting – it was in 

this battle that the Captain was hurt – and 

Captain Pullings has delivered up those who 

were not to the authorities here; but she also 

had a few seamen prisoners whom we have 

set free to go ashore or stay, as they please,


and a dozen African slaves, the property, if I 

may use the word, of the pirates; they were 

shut up below and they took no part in the 

fighting. There is no question of their being 

sold to increase our people's prize-money, 

since the most influential men in our crew, 

deeply religious men, are abolitionists, and 

they carry the others with them.' 

'Bless them.' 

'Bless them indeed. But the Captain does not 

like to turn the black men ashore; he fears 

they may be taken up and reduced to servitude 

again: and although he does not feel so 

strongly about slaves as I do – it is one of the 

few points on which we differ – he is of opinion 

that having sailed for even so short a time 

under the British flag they ipso facto became 

free, and that it would be an injustice to deprive 

them of their liberty. He would value 

your advice.'


'I honour him for his care of them. Properly 

vouched for, they may certainly live here in 

freedom. Have they a trade, at all?' 

'They were being carried from one French 

sugar-plantation to another when their vessel 

was taken: as far as I can make out – their 

French amounts to a few words, no more – 

that is all the work they understand.' 

'We can find them places here easily 

enough,' said Sam, waving towards a sea of 

green cane. 'But it is hard work and ill-paid. 

Would the Captain not consider keeping them 

aboard?' 

'He would not. We have only able seamen or 

highly-skilled tradesmen – the sailmakers, 

coopers, armourers – and landsmen could 

never be countenanced in such a vessel as 

ours. Yet surely even a low wage with freedom 

is better than no wage and lifelong slavery?'


'Anything at all is better than slavery,' cried 

Sam with a surprising degree of passion in so 

large and calm a man. 'Anything at all – wandering 

diseased and three parts starved in the 

mountains, roasted, frozen, naked, hunted by 

dogs, like the wretched Maroons I sought out 

in Jamaica.' 

'You too feel very strongly about slavery?' 

'Oh indeed and indeed I do. The West Indies 

were bad enough, but Brazil was worse by far. 

As you know, I worked for what seemed an 

eternity among the black slaves there.' 

'I remember it well. That was one of the many 

reasons that I looked forward so to seeing you 

again in Peru.' He looked attentively at Sam; 

but Sam's mind was still in Brazil and in his 

deep voice, deeper than Jack's, he went on, 

'There may be a tolerable domestic slavery – 

who has not seen something like it in slave-


countries? – but the temptation is always 

there, the possibility of excess, the latent tyranny, 

the latent servility; and who is fit to be 

continually exposed to temptation? On the 

other hand it seems to me that there is no 

possibility whatsoever of a tolerable industrial 

slavery. It rots both sides wholly away. The 

Portuguese are a kindly, amiable nation, but 

in their plantations and mines...' 

After a while, the road flowing past them and 

the river on the right-hand side, Sam checked 

abruptly and in a hesitant, faltering tone he 

said, 'Dear Doctor, sir, pray forgive me. Here 

am I prating away for ever and in a loud voice 

to you, a man that might be my father. Sure 

you know all this better than I do, and have 

reflected on it since before ever I was born: 

shame on my head.' 

'Not at all, not at all, Sam. I have not a tenth 

part of your experience. But I know enough to


be sure that slavery is totally evil. The early 

generous revolution in the France of my youth 

abolished it: Buonaparte brought it back; and 

he is an evil man – his system is an evil system. 

Tell me, does the Archbishop feel as you 

do?' 

'His Grace is a very ancient gentleman. But 

the Vicar-General, Father O'Higgins, does.' 

'Many of my friends in Ireland and England 

are abolitionists,' observed Stephen, deciding 

to go no farther at this point. 'I believe I can 

make out the Alastor among the shipping to 

the left of the Dominican church. She is 

painted black, and she has four masts. That is 

where we live while the Surprise is being repaired: 

her knees cause some anxiety, I understand. 

I look forward to presenting my little 

girls to you, Sarah and Emily, who are good – 

well, fairly good – Catholics, though they have 

barely seen the inside of a church, to showing


you the Captain's unhappy, bewildered, halfliberated 

black men, and to asking your help 

in housing my patients if the prize is sold from 

under them before they are quite well. And 

Sam,' he went on as they entered Callao, 'at 

some later time when you are free I should 

very much like to talk to you about the state of 

public opinion here in Peru: not only about 

abolition, but about many other things, such 

as freedom of commerce, representation, independence, 

and the like.'


SEVEN 

The little girls, stiff with pride and amazement, 

and fairly soused with holy water, were 

handed into the carriage after pontifical High 

Mass in Lima cathedral. They smoothed their 

white dresses, their broad blue Marial sashes 

and sat quite straight, looking as happy as 

was consistent with a high degree of pious 

awe: they had just heard the tremendous voice 

of an organ for the first time; they had just 

been blessed by an archbishop in his mitre. 

The crowded steps and pavement thinned; 

the viceroy's splendid coach rolled away, escorted 

by guards in blue and scarlet, to his 

palace fifty yards away; the great square be-


came clearly visible. 

'There in the middle is the splendid fountain 

of the world,' said Sam. 

'Yes, Father,' they replied. 

'Do you see the water spouting from the top?' 

asked Stephen. 

'Yes, sir,' they answered, and they ventured 

no more until they came to Sam's quarters in 

an arcaded court behind the university, not 

unlike a quadrangle in one of the smaller Oxford 

colleges. 'Yes, Father: yes, sir,' was their 

total response to the news that the fountain 

was forty foot high, not counting the figure of 

Fame on the top; that it was surrounded by 

four and twenty pieces of artillery and sixteen 

iron chains of unusual weight; that the Casa 

de la Inquisición had scarcely a rival but the 

one in Madrid; that two of the streets through 

which they passed had been entirely paved


with silver ingots to welcome an earlier viceroy; 

and that because of the frequent earthquakes 

the upper and sometimes the lower 

floors of the house were built of wooden 

frames filled with stout reeds, plastered over 

and painted stone or brick colour, with appropriate 

lines to help the illusion – that the 

great thing to do, in the event of an earthquake, 

was to open the door: otherwise it 

might jam and you would be buried under the 

ruins. 

They grew a little less shy, a little more human, 

when they were led indoors and fed. 

Sam's servant Hipolito pleased them by wearing 

a sash broader than their own but clerical 

violet; they were delighted to see that the door 

was indeed kept open by a wedge, and even 

more so by the discovery of a ludicrous resemblance 

between Hipolito and Killick – the 

same look of pinched, shrewish discontent,


diffused indignation; the same put-upon air; 

and the same restless desire to have everything 

proceed according to his own idea of 

order – but with this essential difference, that 

whereas Killick relied on the Captain's cook 

for all but coffee and the simplest breakfast 

dishes, Hipolito could provide a capital dinner 

with no more help than a boy to carry plates. 

This meal, however, being very early and the 

guests very young, was as plain as well could 

be: gazpacho, a dish of fresh anchovies, a 

paella: with them a little flowery wine from 

Pisco. Then came fruit, including the Peruvian 

version of the custard-apple, the chirimoya at 

its best, of which the little girls ate so greedily 

that they were obliged to be restrained – so 

greedily that they could manage few of the little 

almond cakes that would have ended their 

feast if they had been allowed to remain. But 

happily Hipolito had been born old, and nei-


ther Sam nor Stephen had any notion of entertaining 

the young apart from putting volumes 

of Eusebius on their chairs so that they might 

dominate their food. Their wine-glasses had 

been regularly filled; they had as regularly 

emptied them; and when towards the end of 

the meal the boy, standing in the doorway, 

saw fit to make antic gestures behind his master's 

back they were unable to restrain themselves. 

Stifled laughter-swelled to uncontrollable 

giggles – neither could look at the other, 

still less at the boy in the doorway; and both 

were rather relieved than otherwise when they 

were turned out into the quadrangle and told 

'to run about and play very quietly, until 

Jemmy Ducks comes to fetch you in the gig.' 

'I am so sorry, Father,' said Stephen. 'They 

have never behaved like this before: I should 

have whipped them had it not been Sunday.' 

'Not at all, not at all, God love you, sir. It


would be the world's pity if they were kept to a 

Carmelite silence – sure a healthy child must 

laugh from time to time; it would be a dismal 

existence otherwise. Indeed they were very 

good, sitting up straight with their napkins 

held just so.' He passed almond cakes, 

poured coffee, and went on, 'As for public 

opinion here in Peru, I should say that there is 

reasonably strong feeling for independence, 

particularly as the present Viceroy has made 

some very unpopular decisions in favour of 

those born in Spain as opposed to those born 

here. In some cases it is combined with a desire 

to see the end of slavery, but I do not 

think this is so much so as it is in Chile. After 

all, there are perhaps ten times as many slaves 

here, and many of the plantations depend entirely 

on their labour: yet there are many 

highly-respected, influential men who hate it. I 

have two friends, two colleagues, who know


very much more about the matter than I do: 

the one is Father O'Higgins, the Vicar-General 

and my immediate superior – he is very, very 

kind to me – and the other is Father Inigo 

Gómez, who lectures on Indian languages in 

the university. He is descended from one of 

the great Inca families on his mother's side – 

you know, I am sure, that there are still many 

of them, even after the last desperate rising. 

That is to say, those who were opposed to the 

rebellious Inca Tupac Amaru; and they still 

have many followers. Clearly, he understands 

that side better than any Castillian. Should you 

like to meet them? They are both abolitionists, 

but they would do their best to speak without 

prejudice, I have no doubt at all.' 

The chiming watch in Stephen's fob, so often 

his conscience before, now warned him once 

again. He started up and in a low hurried 

voice he said, 'Listen, Sam, I do not wish to


abuse your friends' confidence, far less your 

own. You must know that I am not only bitterly 

opposed to slavery but also to the dependence 

of one country upon another – you may 

smile, Sam, brought up as you were by Irish 

missionaries, God be with them – yet I mean 

the dependence of any country at all upon 

another; therefore I may be suspected of political, 

even subversive motives by those in authority. 

Do not run yourself or your friends into 

danger; for where those who are called intelligence-agents 

or their allies are concerned the 

Inquisition is mildness itself in comparison with 

those who maintain the established order.' He 

saw the half-suppressed, not wholly unexpected 

smile on Sam's face, heard him say, 

'Doctor dear, you are beyond measure more 

candid than the Frenchmen here, the serpents,' 

and went on, 'But tell me now, Sam, 

where is the calle de los Mercaderes? If it


takes ten minutes I shall be twenty minutes 

late.' 

'If I let you out by the stable door it will be the 

third on your right hand: and I will give the little 

girls over to the sailor when he comes with 

the gig.' 

In spite of his name Pascual de Gayongos 

was a Catalan, and when by a series of arbitrary 

questions and answers Stephen had established 

his identity it was in Catalan that he 

said, 'I had expected you long, long before 

this.' 

'I regret it extremely,' said Stephen. 'I was 

caught up in a particularly interesting conversation. 

But, my dear sir, does not a long, long 

time almost border on the excessive for twenty 

minutes?' 

'I was not speaking of twenty minutes, no, nor


of twenty weeks. These funds have been in my 

hands for an even greater time.' 

'Certainly. Some information about our undertaking 

had been betrayed to Spain' – 

Gayongos nodded – 'and it was thought expedient 

that I should change to another ship, 

rejoining the Surprise at a stated rendezvous. 

An intelligent plan, and one that would have 

caused no great delay; but it did not foresee 

that this second vessel should be wrecked in a 

remote part of the East Indies, nor that the inevitable 

pauses in Java and New South Wales 

should eat up days, weeks, months that will 

never return.' 

'And in that period,' said Gayongos in a discontented 

voice, 'the situation here has 

changed radically: Chile is now a very much 

more suitable plan for the enterprise, the 

whole series of undertakings.'


Stephen looked at him attentively. Gayongos 

was a big heavy man, well on in middle age; 

he gave the impression of general greyness 

and he was over-weight: at this point his fat 

trembled with passion, fairly well concealed. 

His commercial dealing had already made 

him rich: he had nothing to gain and his motives 

seemed wholly pure, if indeed hatred 

could be called pure: hatred of the Spaniards 

for their treatment of Catalonia; hatred of the 

Revolutionary and Bonapartist French for ravaging 

the country. 

'Is Government aware of this?' asked 

Stephen. 

'I have made representations through the 

usual channels, and I have been told to mind 

my own business: the Foreign Office knows 

best.' 

'I have known the same treatment.' Stephen


reflected and went on, 'But at this point I am 

necessarily bound by my instructions: any alteration 

must take six months to reach me and 

those six months, added to the present delay, 

will see the decay of the whole structure built 

up here and in Spain. I shall have to do the 

best I can: yet at the same time I shall endeavour 

to avoid committing what we have at 

our disposal until we see some strong probability 

of success.' 

After a silence Gayongos made a gesture of 

resignation and said, 'If the Foreign Office 

were a firm of marine insurers they would be 

bankrupt within a year. But it must be as you 

wish, and I shall arrange the agreed meetings, 

or at least those that are still of any consequence, 

as soon as possible.' 

'Before we speak of them, be so good as to 

tell me, very briefly, how the situation has 

changed.'


'In the first place General Mendoza is dead. 

His horse threw him and he was picked up 

dead. He was one of the most popular men in 

the army, particularly among the Creoles, and 

he might well have carried half the officers 

with him. In the second the Archbishop is now 

– I hardly like to use the word senile about so 

good a man and so outspoken an abolitionist: 

but we are deprived of the full force of his 

support. In the third place Juan Muñoz has returned 

to Spain, and he has been replaced as 

far as governmental enquiries, secret service 

and unavowable activities are concerned by 

García de Castro, too timid to be equally corrupt 

and in any event wholly unreliable: clever 

perhaps but oh so weak – terrified of the new 

Viceroy, terrified of losing his place. He is not 

a man to have anything to do with, near or 

far.' 

'The absence of Muñoz disturbs me,' said


Stephen. 'If Castro has access to his papers, 

my position is very nearly untenable.' 

'I do not think you should feel anxious,' said 

Gayongos. 'We did handsomely by Muñoz; 

and quite apart from the presents he was 

wholly on our side. I do not pretend that 

handsome presents, or places in my concerns 

for his nephew and natural sons, did not have 

their effect on him, but he was not a weak unprincipled 

man like this Castro, and he was 

capable of taking decisive action in support of 

his friends. The reports about our possible intervention 

here – never taken very seriously in 

Madrid, by the way – passed through his 

hands in the first place and he virtually smothered 

them: it was easy enough, since the then 

Viceroy was about to leave, very ill, sick of the 

country and everything to do with it. And when 

the Surprise appeared – I mean when she 

came in first without you – he went privately


down to Callao, ascertained that she was 

what she purports to be, a privateer, and had 

her officially inspected and passed the next 

day. Before he left Peru he destroyed a great 

many files. If any of the more bulky routine 

commonplace innocuous registers were kept 

you would appear only under your name of 

Domanova: but I very much doubt it. And I do 

not believe the privateer's captain was ever 

named at all.' 

'That is comforting, to be sure,' said Stephen, 

cocking his ear to the window. All over Lima 

church and chapel bells began ringing the 

Angelus with no more than a few seconds between 

them, a remarkable medley of tones: 

both men crossed themselves and remained 

silent for a while. Looking up again Stephen 

said 'Except in certain forms the Church is not 

a well-organized body – scarcely an organized 

body at all – yet sometimes flashes of sharp,


co-ordinated intelligence pierce through and 

they are the more formidable for being unexpected. 

There is perhaps a certain analogy 

here with the Spanish government.' 

Gayongos digested this, and then said, 'Let 

us turn to the administration. The new Viceroy 

is not intelligent, but he wished to distinguish 

himself by being active and zealous: he is 

wholly committed to the King – quite unapproachable 

by any means – and so are the 

people he brought with him, his immediate 

staff. But fortunately most of the secretariat 

remains unaltered, and I have some reports 

that will interest you. As for the chief officeholders, 

there is little change, except at the 

head of Indian affairs, which is now occupied 

by a highly-respected man, a friend of Humboldt's 

and like him an abolitionist; while in 

the department dealing with trade and customs 

the deputy-controller has taken over


from his chief, but he continues the same 

kindness towards me, and sometimes with my 

wide connexions I am able to let him know of 

a profitable venture, as I did for his predecessor.' 

In a kind of parenthesis they talked about 

trade for a while: it was a subject upon which 

Gayongos, with his correspondents and business 

associates up and down the Pacific coast 

and beyond the isthmus, even as far as the 

United States, was unusually well qualified to 

speak. He had many activities but the chief 

was the insurance of ships and their cargoes, 

sometimes joining in a scheme he thought unusually 

sound; and to make a success of these 

an accurate knowledge of conditions, public 

feeling and official intention in the various 

provinces was of the first importance. 'As I am 

sure you know,' he observed, 'the governors of 

all the considerable cities, garrisons and dis-


tricts send confidential reports to the Viceroy. It 

was Muñoz who first suggested that we should 

use them, when I began to let him have a 

share in some of my undertakings; and now of 

the seven copies made one comes to me as a 

matter of course: they are particularly interesting 

at this juncture, since they have an appendix 

on the political opinion and loyalty of 

many officers, ecclesiastics and servants of the 

crown.' He looked at Stephen to see the effect 

of his words, and with some satisfaction he 

went on, 'This brings us naturally to the army. 

But before we speak of the soldiers, may I ask 

whether you know there is a French mission 

here?' 

'I do,' said Stephen, smiling. 'It would be 

strange if there were not. But I know only of its 

existence. Pray tell me what the mission consists 

of, and how they are coming along.' 

'There are five of them, all said to be Swiss,


Catholic Swiss. The leader and his brother, the 

two Brissacs, are mathematicians, measuring 

the force of gravity and the height of various 

mountains; the other two are said to be naturalists. 

The fifth, who speaks very good Spanish, 

seems merely to arrange their expeditions. 

They brought a letter of introduction from 

Humboldt, or what purported to be a letter of 

introduction from Humboldt, and they were 

well received at the university. They are evidently 

men of considerable learning.' 

'What progress have they made?' 

'Not very much. The elder Brissac, Charles, is 

a man of real ability and he has entered into 

serious conversation with some who are in favour 

of the new order. But the present French 

position on slavery cannot please the sort of 

people he usually sees, who are abolitionists, 

and he has nothing like enough money to 

tempt those who are both open to temptation


and worth tempting. On the other hand, in 

spite of everything, everything, there is still a 

glamour attaching to France, and combined 

with the name of Napoleon and the idea of 

independence it moves some young men to a 

giddy enthusiasm; and the two naturalists, 

who appear to have served in the Italian campaign, 

have a number of followers. Castro 

may be one of them. He often invites the 

younger, Latrobe, and he arranged for their 

journey to the place where Humboldt stayed 

near Quito, so far up in the Andes that you 

can touch the moon from the ground floor.' 

'That would have been Antisana for sure; and 

if I do not mistake the house is at more than 

thirteen thousand feet. If these French agents 

were not truly devoted naturalists, it must have 

been the weary, weary climb for them. But 

Lord, what an opportunity! I long to see the 

high Andes – to tread the virgin snow, and


view the condor on her nest, the puma in his 

lair. I do not mention the higher saxifrages.' 

'I went to Quito once,' said Gayongos, 'which 

is only nine thousand odd: up and up, always 

up and up, your lungs bursting, the muscles of 

your shins on fire; for you often have to lead 

your mule. Never, never again. I had rather 

be taken by the Inquisition. And there – how 

curious – there, hesitating to cross the street' – 

They were sitting in a protruding louvered balcony 

from which they could see without being 

seen – 'there, the gentleman in black, is a familiar 

of the Inquisition. Yes. Yes. So he is. 

That reminds me: Castro is a Marrano – his 

great-grandmother was a Toledo Jewess – 

and perhaps that is what makes him so anxious 

to be cherished by the Viceroy while at 

the same time he longs to insure himself on 

the other side.' 

'A difficult position,' observed Stephen. 'A


Marrano cannot afford to make enemies: one 

alleged dislike of pork – one seven-branched 

candlestick found in his house – no matter 

who put it there – and the familiars come for 

him. He is accused of Hebrew practices, and 

you know the rest. Castro had much better 

keep quiet.' 

'Castro is not capable of keeping quiet,' said 

Gayongos, and from that they went on to discuss 

the soldiers: it appeared from Gayongos' 

informed comments and from his appendices 

that there was a considerable amount of idealism 

and of support for independence, particularly 

among the captains and lieutenants; 

the senior officers were for the most part 

chiefly concerned with power and personal 

advantage; and they tended to hate one another. 

'There are already bitter quarrels about 

how various commands and ministries are to 

be shared out,' said Gayongos. But he also


vouched for three relatively disinterested generals 

and stated that if they were properly approached 

they might move in concert and 

precipitate the revolution: this would be all the 

more feasible if they were supplied with donatives 

to win the support of five or six regiments 

in key positions. 'This we can afford to do,' 

said Gayongos, 'whereas the French can not. 

Yet these are difficult, imperious men, and the 

presentation of the scheme is of the very first 

importance; and in any case it is you who 

have to decide on their value and on the present 

situation. General Hurtado is by far the 

most influential, and he is in Lima at present: 

should you like to go shooting with him early 

on Friday morning?' 

'Very much. It would I think be indiscreet to 

ask to borrow your confidential reports.' 

'They are indeed very bulky; and although I 

could explain their presence, no one else out-


side the palace could do so. May I look 

through them for some particular point?' 

'I should be interested in any recent mention 

of Father O'Higgins the Vicar-General, of Father 

Gómez and of Father Panda.' 

'Now that the Archbishop is failing, the Vicar- 

General is the most important man in the diocese. 

He is an abolitionist and he would be 

entirely on our side but for the fact that he deplores 

violence and that the English are for the 

most part heretics. Father Panda, a tall African, 

is his confidential assistant; he does not 

seem to mind violence nearly so much. Although 

he is so young they say he is very well 

seen in Rome, and is likely to be a prelate 

soon: the Vicar-General thinks the world of 

him. He too is an abolitionist of course. Of 

Father Gómez I only know that he is descended 

from Pachacutic Inca, that he is much 

reverenced by the Indians, and that he is very


learned, which is not my line at all.' 

'I believe I shall meet them privately quite 

soon.' 

'Very good,' said Gayongos. 'And for these 

gentlemen?' He held up his list of agreed 

meetings. 

'General Hurtado on Friday morning by all 

means; but it might be wiser to give the Vicar- 

General priority over the others – to see them 

having learnt his views.' 

'Very much wiser.' 

There seemed little more to be said at this 

first interview, apart from settling the place 

and time of Friday's expedition; but after a 

moment Gayongos said, 'This may be an absurd 

suggestion – it is most unlikely that you 

should have the time – but you said you 

longed to see the high Andes: Antisana, 

Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and the like. Now I


shall presently have messengers going to Panama 

and Chagres by way of Quito. I should 

in any case have offered their services for any 

letters you might wish to have sent from the 

Atlantic side of the isthmus; but it occurs to me 

that some of these interviews may take a long 

while to arrange, a long while for emissaries 

to come and go – Potosi, Cuzco, for example 

– and that possibly you might find time to 

travel with them as far as Quito, reliable men 

who know the road and who could show you 

prodigious prospects of snow, rock and ice, 

volcanoes, bears, guanacoes, vicuñas, eagles...' 

'You tempt me strangely: I wish it could be 

so. I dearly love a mountain,' said Stephen. 

'But I could not square it with my conscience. 

No. I am afraid it will have to wait until our 

design is carried out. But I shall certainly burden 

your people with my letters, if I may:


many, many thanks to you, my dear sir.' 

For days the wind had kept in the east, and 

by now there was a considerable sea running 

across the northward current, causing the 

Franklin to roll and pitch rather more than was 

comfortable, rather more than was usual for 

mustering the ship's company by divisions; but 

this was Sunday, the first Sunday that Jack had 

felt reasonably sure that his wounded leg 

would bear the exercise, and he decided to 

carry on. At breakfast the word had been 

passed 'clean to muster' and now the bosun 

was bawling down the hatchways, 'D'ye hear, 

there, fore and aft? Clear for muster at five 

bells. Duck frocks and white trousers,' while his 

only remaining mate roared, 'D'ye hear, there? 

Clean shirts and shave for muster at five bells.' 

Many of the seamen were of course old Surprises: 

for them all this was part of immemo-


rial custom, as much part of natural life as 

dried peas on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 

and they had already washed their best 

shirts in readiness while on Saturday evening 

or early on Sunday they had combed out their 

pigtails and replaited them, each man for his 

tie-mate, before or after cornering the ship's 

barber for their shave. Now, apart from fitting 

the poor bewildered blacks into their purser's 

slops, brushing and tidying them as well as 

they could and comforting them by calling 

out, 'It's all right, mate: never fret,' and patting 

them on the back or shoulders, they were 

quite ready. 

So was their Captain. He was about to pull 

on his ceremonial breeches when, through the 

open door, Killick cried, 'No you don't. Oh no 

you don't, sir. Not until I have looked at those 

there wounds and that there eye. It was the 

Doctor's orders, sir, which you cannot deny it.


And orders is orders.' 

He had an overwhelming moral advantage, 

and Jack sat down, showing his thigh, a 

damned great slit that had been very painful 

at first but that had healed to a fair extent, just 

as his scalp had done, though walking was 

still awkward. Unwillingly Killick admitted that 

they needed no more than the ointment; but 

when he unrolled the bandage covering the 

Captain's eye he cried, 'Now we shall have to 

have the drops as well as the salve – a horrid 

sight: like a poached egg, only bloody – and I 

tell you what, sir, I shall put a little Gregory 

into the drops.' 

'How do you mean, Gregory!' 

'Why, everybody knows Gregory's Patent Liquid, 

sir: it rectifies the humours. And don't 

these humours want rectifying? Oh no, not at 

all. I never seen anything so ugly. God love


us!' 

'Did the Doctor mention Gregory's Patent 

Liquid?' 

'Which I put some on Barret Bonden's wound, 

a horrible great gash: like a butcher's shop. 

And look at it now. As clean as a whistle. 

Come on, sir. Never mind the smart; it is all 

for your own good.' 

'A very little, then,' said Jack, who had in fact 

known of Gregory's Liquid together with Harris's 

Guaranteed Unguent, Carey's Warranted 

Arrowroot, brimstone and treacle on Friday 

and other staples of domestic medicine, all as 

much a part of daily life on land as hard-tack 

and mustering by divisions on Sunday at sea. 

With his hat very carefully arranged over his 

new bandage – for in spite of his innumerable 

faults Killick did not lack a kind of sparse tenderness 

– Jack made his way up the compan-


ion-ladder at half a glass before five bells in 

the forenoon watch, hauling himself up step 

by step. It was an exceptionally beautiful day, 

brilliant, cloudless, with the immense sky a 

deeper, more uniform blue than usual and the 

sea, where it was not chopped white, an even 

deeper shade, the true imperial blue. The 

wind was still due east, singing quite loud in 

the rigging; but although the Franklin could 

have spread topgallant-sails she was in fact lying 

to, bowing the uneven seas with her main 

topsail aback and a balancing mizen. Under 

her lee lay her most recent prize, a fur-trader 

down from the north, a fat, comfortable vessel, 

but naturally so unweatherly and now so 

foul-bottomed as well that she was utterly incapable 

of working to windward at all, and 

Captain Aubrey was waiting for the return of 

the south-east or south-south-east trade to see 

her in. She carried no extraordinary cargo –


she had meant to fill up her hold with seals' 

skin down at Mas Afuera – but those Surprises, 

and there were several of them, who 

had been on the Nootka run and who had 

conversed with their prisoners, knew that in 

sea-otter skins and beaver alone the able 

seaman's share of the prize would be in the 

nature of ninety-three pieces of eight; and it 

was a cheerful ship that her Captain was now 

about to inspect. 

The starboard watch had already brought up 

their clothes bags, arranging them in a low 

pyramid on the booms, and the larbowlines 

were laying theirs in a neat square far aft on 

the quarterdeck when Jack appeared. As he 

had done a thousand times on such occasions 

he cast an eye at the sea, the sky, and the 

ship's trim: literally an eye, for even if the other 

had not been hidden by a bandage it could 

not bear this brilliant light, whilst in the dim-


ness of his sleeping-cabin its sight was troubled, 

uncertain. He also absorbed the mood 

of the ship's company, and in spite of the severe 

indwelling pain and anxiety some of their 

cheerfulness came into his mood. 

Five bells, and he nodded to Vidal, the acting 

first lieutenant, who cried, 'Beat to divisions.' 

So many people were away in various ships 

that the order did not run down the usual series 

of repetitions but came into instant effect 

with the thunder of the roaring drum. The recently-promoted 

stopgap officers, most of 

them Shelmerstonian master-mariners in their 

own right, reported that their divisions were 

'present, properly dressed and clean'. 

Vidal crossed the deck, took off his hat, and 

said, 'All the officers have reported, sir.' 

'We will go round the ship, then, if you 

please,' replied Jack.


And round they went in the traditional manner, 

except that Bonden, as Captain's coxswain, 

accompanied them in case of a false 

step on the blind side: for though Bonden's 

ribs and breastbone had been exposed to 

public view in the taking of the Alastor, his 

wound had healed fast and his friends had 

taken seamanlike steps to ensure that it should 

not open again: first a girth of linen rubbed 

with hog's lard, then two of number eight sailcloth, 

then the same of number four, and over 

all a span-broad white-marline plait ending in 

stout knittels that could be and were hauled 

taut with a heaver, so taut that he could 

breathe only with his belly. 

The afterguard and waisters under Slade 

formed the first division, and here were most 

of the Alastor's black slaves, naturally enough, 

since they were the merest landsmen, useful 

only for holystoning the deck in smooth


weather, swabbing and sweeping it, or hauling 

on a rope under strict supervision: abruptly 

Jack found that he did not know their names – 

could not tell one from another – and was unable 

to exchange the usual word. They were 

beautifully clean, shining clean, and perfectly 

dressed in their new duck frocks and trousers, 

and they had been taught to stand up and pull 

off their hats, but they looked nervous, far 

from happy: their eyes rolled with apprehension. 

The next group had two more as well as 

some remaining Franklins, and although Jack 

knew the white men tolerably well he was surprised 

to see them in this division. But the 

people under his command had necessarily 

been given such different duties and moved to 

and fro between such different ships that even 

a captain who had not been knocked on the 

head and obliged to keep his cabin for some 

time might have been confused. It was better


when he came to the gunners and the forecastlemen, 

the oldest hands aboard, ludicrously 

under Reade, whose voice had not yet finished 

breaking; but Jack was still worried when he 

went below with his escort to inspect the galley, 

the berthdeck and all the rest. He had always 

felt that it was an officer's absolute duty 

to know all his men, their watch, rating, abilities, 

and of course their name and division: 

he, Vidal and Bonden at length returned to the 

daylight, filed past the remaining seamen 

prisoners and so to the leeward side of the 

quarterdeck where the captured officers stood. 

'It is a pleasure to see you walking about and 

looking so well, sir,' said one of them. 

'You are very good, sir,' replied Jack. Then, 

conscious of an absence, he ran his eye 

sharply over the little band and cried, 'Where 

is Mr Dutourd? Bonden, jump down to his 

cabin and rouse him out. Find his servant.'


There was no Dutourd: nor could his servant 

be found though the ship, the prize and the 

schooner-rigged launch towing astern were 

searched through and through with all the skill 

of those accustomed to hiding goods from 

customs officers and men from impressment. 

His sea-chest, with the plate reading Jean du 

Tourd, was in his cabin, and all his clothes; 

his writing-desk, open and disordered, with 

some papers presumably taken from it; but his 

purse, which Jack had restored, was not to be 

seen. 

The testimonies were extraordinarily varied: 

they agreed only in that Dutourd had not 

dined in the gunroom for quite a while and 

that he had seemed to be offended – was 

thought to be messing by himself. But how 

long that time was no one could tell for certain. 

Even Killick, the most inquisitive man 

aboard, had no sure, clearly-dated knowl-


edge, and to Jack's astonishment he was not 

even aware that Dutourd had been refused 

leave to go to Callao in the Surprise with his 

former shipmates – did not even know that he 

had asked for permission. No one could 

swear to having seen him on the quarterdeck 

after the Franklin had parted company: none 

could swear to the contrary: most had the impression 

that he was keeping his cabin, studying 

or sick. 

There were several possibilities, and Jack 

turned them over in his mind as he sat, alone 

at last, in the Franklin's stern window: Dutourd 

might have brought his belongings over from 

the Surprise to the Franklin, returning on some 

pretext and there concealing himself. He 

might have walked into the Alastor when she 

was alongside, transferring stores: the same 

applied to the whaler. And there was the 

launch, sent in to bring hands from Callao.


It was the outcome that really mattered, however: 

in his reserved way Stephen had said 

that sending Dutourd in to Callao 'might be 

impolitic'; and there was no doubt that Dutourd 

was in Callao at this moment. 

'Pass the word for Mr Vidal,' he called, and 

when Vidal came, 'Sit down, Mr Vidal. Who 

took the launch into Callao?' 

'I did, sir,' said Vidal, changing colour. 

'How did she handle?' 

'Sir?' 

'How did she handle? Is she a weatherly 

boat? Does she hold a good wind?' 

'Yes, sir. She points up very close indeed: 

makes almost no leeway, close-hauled, a 

jewel of a...' His voice died away. 

'Very well. Pray have her victualled and 

stored, with masts stepped, before the first


dog.' 

'...craft,' said Vidal, finishing his words. 

'Do not let them forget fishing-tackle and a 

casting net: it may need two or three days to 

beat in if this wind don't change. I shall take 

Bonden, Killick, Plaice, William Johnson: and 

your Ben.' The last he named after an infinitesimal 

pause, for while they were speaking he 

had come to an intimate conviction that Dutourd 

had gone ashore in the schooner and 

that taking Ben would if nothing else prevent 

any foolish action on Vidal's part: it might 

have been wiser to take Vidal himself, but with 

so many of the most responsible and experienced 

men away or wounded Vidal was by far 

the best to leave in charge: he might have 

chapelish, democratic, even republican views, 

but he had been the master of a ship larger 

than the Franklin, he was a prime seaman, 

thoroughly respected, and he had a large fol-


lowing. 'You will take command while I am 

away,' he said after a silence. 'If the wind 

keeps in the east, as I believe it will, you will 

not be able to carry the prize a single mile 

nearer Callao, though you beat up day and 

night. Should it change you may come in, and 

if you cannot fetch Callao we will rendezvous 

off the Chinchas. But I shall give you your orders 

in writing, together with a list of meetingplaces 

from the Lobos Rock far to the southward.' 

Indeed, to make any real progress in a 

breeze as strong and steady as this a vessel 

had to be rigged fore and aft, and nothing 

could have been more wholly fore and aft 

than the Alastor's elegant mahogany launch 

with her remarkably flat-cut sails: in spite of 

his deep uneasiness Jack took a pleasure in 

getting all that he could from her, bringing her


up to the very edge of shivering, falling off just 

that much and sending her fast through the 

coming sea. The launch was as responsive as 

a well-mannered, spirited horse; it was beamy 

and stiff enough for this kind of weather; and 

well before nightfall they had sunk the Franklin's 

topsails in the west. 

When Jack Aubrey was strongly moved he 

seemed to grow taller and broadershouldered, 

while without the slightest affectation 

or morosity his ordinarily good-humoured 

expression became remote. Killick was not 

easily put down: ordinary fits of anger over 

dropped bottles, inept orders from Whitehall 

or the flag left him totally unmoved, so did reproach 

and even abuse, but this rare, particular 

gravity intimidated him and when he 

dressed leg, eye and scalp that evening he did 

so with no more words than were necessary, 

and those uttered meekly.


The decked part of the launch was divided 

fore and aft into two long cuddies, each with 

headroom enough to sit up; it was here that 

Jack stretched out on a mattress over the grating 

a little after the setting of the watch. Although 

the forward part of the cuddy was 

filled with canvas and cordage there was 

plenty of room for him and according to his 

life-long habit he fell asleep within minutes, in 

spite of pain and anxiety. His neighbours in 

the larboard cuddy, Johnson and young Ben 

Vidal, did much the same. Johnson, a black 

man from the Seven Dials, began telling Ben 

about his triumph over the whoreson pinchfart 

master-at-arms in Bellerophon when first he 

went to sea, but his voice dwindled when he 

found he had no hearer. 

It had been laid down that they should be at 

watch-and-watch, and a few minutes before 

midnight Jack woke straight out of what had


seemed a deep and dreamless sleep. Yet 

some parts of his mind must have been active, 

since he knew perfectly well that the launch 

had gone about four times and that the wind 

had diminished to a moderate breeze. He 

made his way out of the cuddy into the light of 

the moon, a true clock if one knew her age 

and her exact place among the stars for the 

beginning of each watch. Suddenly, as he 

stood there swaying to the quieter sea and 

wishing he could stretch over the lee rail and 

dash water into his face, it occurred to him 

that his eye scarcely hurt at all: there was still 

a certain irritation, but the deep pain was not 

there. 'By God,' he said, 'perhaps I shall be 

able to swim again in a week or two.' 

'You are a good relief, sir,' said Bonden, 

yielding the tiller; and he gave an exact account 

of the courses steered – two reaches as 

near south-east by east as possible and two


north-east by east – and their speed, rising to 

ten knots one fathom now that the head-seas 

had grown less lumpish. Behind them there 

was the muffled sound of the changing watch, 

the very small watch; and Jack said, 'Well, 

turn in, Bonden, and get what sleep you can.' 

He settled into the helmsman's place with the 

living tiller under his hand and forearm, and 

while his companions pumped and baled the 

launch dry – a good deal of water had come 

aboard earlier, but now there was no more 

than the odd waft of spray – his mind moved 

back to its essential preoccupations. His moral 

conviction that Vidal had been party to Dutourd's 

escape was irrational in that it was 

based on no more than an instinctive distrust 

of Vidal's first reply; but now that he reflected, 

gathering all he had ever heard of Dutourd's 

views and those of the Knipperdollings, all that 

he knew about enthusiasm and the lengths to


which it might lead the enthusiast, it appeared 

to him that here reason and instinct coincided, 

as they sometimes did when he fought a battle 

over again in recollection or at least those 

phases such as boarding and the hand-tohand 

encounter in which there was really no 

time for deliberation, no time at all. And his 

reflecting mind approved of his having Ben 

here in the launch: it might do great good; it 

would do no harm at all. 

Yet how Dutourd had managed to get away 

was scarcely worth pondering about for any 

length of time: all that signified was that he 

had got away and that Stephen had said he 

should be kept aboard. 'From my point of view 

it might be impolitic' for him to be set ashore 

in Peru. 

Stephen's point of view had of course to do 

with intelligence, as Jack knew very well: during 

an earlier voyage he had seen him drop a


box which, bursting, revealed a sum so vast 

that it could only have been intended for the 

subversion of a government; and he strongly 

suspected him of having dished two English 

traitors, Ledward and Wray, attached to a 

French mission to the Sultan of Prabang. 

In a parenthesis he heard Stephen's voice: 

'Tell me, Jack, my dear, is dish a nautical 

term?' 

'We often use it in the Navy,' Jack replied. 'It 

means to ruin or frustrate or even destroy. 

Sometimes we say scupper; and there are 

coarser words, but I shall not embarrass you 

by repeating them.' 

On the windward bow Canopus was just 

clearing the horizon. 'Stand by to go about,' 

he called, and his companions ran to their 

stations. He eased off half a point, cried, 

'Helm's a-lee,' and ducking under the boom


he brought the launch round in a true smooth 

curve, filling with barely a check on the starboard 

tack. 

The moon was lowering now, and dimmed 

by a high veil she gave so little light that he 

scarcely saw Johnson come aft. 'Shall I spell 

you now, sir?' he asked, and his teeth showed 

in the darkness. 

'Why, no thank you, Johnson,' said Jack. 'I 

shall sit here for a while.' 

The launch sailed on and on, almost steering 

herself as the breeze grew lighter: and as the 

seas declined – no breaking crests at all – so 

the water became alive with phosphorescence, 

a pale fire streaming away and away in her 

wake but also gleaming in vast amorphous 

bodies at depths of perhaps ten or even twenty 

fathoms, and at various levels the movement 

of fishes could be seen, interweaving lanes or


sudden flashes. 

Jack returned to his reflexions: Stephen's 

point of view had of course to do with intelligence. 

This had almost certainly been the 

case for many, many years, and on occasion 

Jack had been officially required to seek his 

advice on political matters. But he had no notion 

of Stephen's present task: he did not wish 

to know, either, ignorance being the surest 

guarantee of discretion. Nor could he imagine 

how such a man as Dutourd could be any 

hindrance to whatever task it was. Surely no 

government, however besotted, could ever 

think of using such a prating, silly fellow as an 

intelligence agent or any sort of envoy. 

He turned the matter over this way and that. 

It was an exercise as useful as trying to solve 

an equation with innumerable terms of which 

only two could be read. To windward there 

was a vast expiring sigh as a sperm whale sur-


faced, black in a corruscation of green light, 

an enormous solitary bull. His spout drifted 

across the launch itself, and he could be 

heard drawing in the air, breathing for quite 

some time; then easily, smoothly, he shouldered 

over and dived, showing his flukes in a 

final blaze. 

Jack continued with his pointless exercise, 

with one pause when Johnson spelled him, 

until the end of the watch, ending with no 

more valuable observation than that with 

which he had begun: if Dutourd was in any 

way a threat to Stephen on shore it was his 

clear self-evident duty to get the man aboard 

again if it could be done, and if it could not, 

then at least to take Stephen off. 

From the end of the watch at four he slept 

until six, blessing himself for this eye, but uneasy 

about the failing breeze, still right in their 

teeth, but barely carrying the launch close-


hauled at more than five knots, and they 

measured by a hopeful mind. 

It did not surprise him to wake to a calm, but 

for a moment he was surprised by the strong 

smell of frying fish: there was still an hour to 

go before breakfast. 

'Good morning, sir,' said Killick, creeping in 

with his dressings. 'Flat calm and an oily swell.' 

But this he said without his usual satisfaction in 

bringing unwelcome news, and he went on, 

'Which Joe Plaice asks pardon, but could not 

help having a cast; and breakfast will be ready 

in ten minutes. It would be a shame to let it 

grow cold.' 

'Then bring me the hot water, and as soon as 

I am shaved I shall come on deck. You can do 

my eye afterwards: it is much better.' 

'I knew as how Gregory would do it,' cried 

Killick, a look of triumphant happiness on his


face. 'I shall double the dose. I knew I was 

right. It rectifies the humours, you understand.' 

Joe Plaice, a steady forecastle-hand, was 

good at all the countless skills required of an 

able seaman, but he was an absolute artist in 

the use of a casting-net: poised on the bowsprit, 

with his left hand on the stay, he swung 

the net with his right, throwing it with an exactly-calculated 

twist that spread its weighted 

edge so that the whole fell flat as a disk on the 

surface just over one of the countless bands of 

anchovies that surrounded the launch for 

miles in every direction. The little fishes stared 

in amazement or even tried to leap upwards. 

The weights quickly carried the edge of the net 

down and inwards; a string drew them together; 

and the imprisoned fish were drawn 

aboard. Half the first cast had been eaten by 

the helmsman, who was always fed first; the 

second half and two more were eaten fresh


and fresh by all hands, sitting on the deck 

round a large pan, itself poised over charcoal 

on a raised iron plate. 

'By God, this is good,' said Jack, sweeping up 

the juice with his biscuit. 'There is nothing better 

than your really fresh anchovy.' 

'It must die in the pan,' observed Plaice. 'It is 

deadly poison else.' There was a general 

murmur of assent. 'Very true,' said Jack. 'But I 

tell you what, shipmates,' he went on, nodding 

towards the east-south-east, 'you had better 

blow your kites out, you had better eat all you 

can, because God knows when you will have 

another hot meal. Or a cold one, for that 

matter. Ben, do you know what a wind-gall 

is?' 

The very young man blushed, choked on his 

fish, and in a strained voice, looking nervously 

at his companions, said, 'Well, sir, I seen the


ordinary kind.' 

'Look out to leeward, a little afore the beam, 

and you will see one a long way out of the ordinary.' 

'It was not there when we set to breakfast,' 

said Joe Plaice. 

'And to leeward too, oh dear, oh dear,' said 

Johnson. 'God bless us.' 

'Amen,' said the others. 

Far over, in the ill-defined region between 

sea and sky, there was an iridiscent patch, 

roughly oval, of the size that an outstretched 

hand might cover; and its colours, sometimes 

faint, sometimes surprisingly vivid, shifted right 

through the spectrum. 

'A wind-gall to windward means rain, as you 

know very well,' said Jack. 'But a wind-gall to 

leeward means very dirty weather indeed. So 

Joe, you had better make another cast: let us


eat while we can.' 

The other sea-creatures were of the same 

opinion. The launch was now in the middle of 

the northward-flowing Peruvian current and 

for some reason the animalculae that lived 

there had begun one of those immense increases 

in population that can colour the 

whole sea red or make it as turbid as peasoup. 

The anchovies, blind with greed, devoured 

huge quantities; medium-sized fishes 

and squids ate the anchovies with reckless 

abandon, scarcely aware that they themselves 

were being preyed upon by fishes much larger 

than themselves, the bonitoes and their kind, 

by sea-lions, by great flights of pelicans, boobies, 

cormorants, gulls and a singularly beautiful 

tern, while agile penguins raced along 

just beneath the surface. 

The launch's crew spent most of the forenoon 

making all fast, sending up preventer stays


and shrouds and preparing what number one 

canvas they possessed. A little before dinnertime, 

when a tall white rock, a sea-lions' island 

much haunted by birds, the sea-mark for Callao 

Head, showed plain on the starboard 

bow, nicking the horizon ten miles away, with 

the remote almost cloud-like snow-topped 

Andes far beyond, the wind began blowing 

out of a clear high pale-blue sky. It could be 

seen coming, a dun-coloured haze from the 

east, right off shore; it did not come with any 

sudden violence, but it increased steadily to a 

shrieking blast that flattened the sea, bringing 

with it great quantities of very fine sand and 

dust that gritted between their teeth and 

blurred their sight. 

In the interval between the first pleasant hum 

in the rigging that woke the launch to life and 

the scream that overcame everything but a 

shout they came abreast of the tall white rock,


Jack at the tiller, all hands leaning far out to 

windward to balance the boat and the launch 

tearing through the water at a pace somewhere 

between nightmare and ecstasy. As they 

passed under the lee of the island they heard 

the sea-lions barking and young Ben laughed 

aloud. 'You would laugh the other side of your 

face, young fellow, if you could feel how this 

God-damned tiller works with the strain,' said 

Jack to himself, and he noticed that Plaice was 

looking very grave indeed. Joe Plaice, he reflected, 

must be close on sixty: much battered 

in the wars. 

And now at last the wind was working up an 

ugly sea: the waves had no great fetch and 

they were short and steep, growing rapidly 

steeper, with their crests streaming off before 

them. As soon as the boat was past the rock it 

was clear that she could not go on under this 

press of sail. The seamen looked aft: Jack


nodded. No word passed but all moving together 

they carried out the perilous manoeuvre 

of wearing, carrying the launch back into 

the lee, there close-reefing the main and foresail, 

sending up a storm fore-staysail and 

creeping out to sea again. 

For the rest of daylight – and brilliant daylight 

it was, with never a cloud to be seen – this answered 

well enough and they supped by 

watches on biscuit and oatmeal beaten up 

with sugar and water: grog, of course, served 

out by Captain Aubrey. There was even 

enough of a pause for Killick to dress Jack's 

eye and to tell him he would certainly lose it if 

he did not put back to the barky, where it 

could be kept dry. 

'Nonsense,' said Jack. 'It is much better. I can 

see perfectly well: it is only the bright light I 

cannot stand.'


'Then at least let me cut a patch out of the 

flap of your hat, sir, so you can wear the two 

together, like Lord Nelson, tied over your head 

with a scarf, if it blows.' 

It blew. The patch was barely on before the 

making of it would have been impossible: the 

voice of the wind in the rigging rose half an 

octave in half an hour and the boat was flung 

about with shocking violence. Most of that 

night they were obliged to lie to under a storm 

trysail and a scrap of the jib – a night of brilliant 

moon, beaming over a sea white from 

horizon to horizon. 

Tomorrow it must blow out, they said; but it 

did not. The days followed one another and 

the nights, everything on the point of carrying 

away, a perpetual series of crises; sometimes 

they advanced until they were in sight of the 

island guarding Callao and the cliffs: sometimes 

they were beaten back; and presently,


though this was approaching the austral midsummer, 

the wind, blowing off the high Cordillera, 

grew perishing cold to those who were 

always dripping wet. Wet, and now hungry. 

The unhappy Ben contrived not only to scrape 

his shins to the bone but also to lose their precious 

keg of oatmeal overboard; and on 

Thursday their rations were cut by half. 

When Jack announced this in a shout as they 

huddled together in the starboard cuddy he 

added the ritual 'Two upon four of us Thank 

God there are no more of us,' and he was 

pleased to see an answering smile upon those 

worn, cruelly tired faces. 

But there was no smile on Sunday, when at 

dawn they heard the sea-lions quite close at 

hand and realized that they had been driven 

back for the seventh time by a wind that was 

stronger still and even growing, a wind that 

must have blown the Franklin and her prize


far, far into the western ocean.


EIGHT 

Long practice and a certain natural ability 

enabled Stephen Maturin to compose a semiofficial 

report of some length in his head and 

to encode a condensed version from memory, 

leaving no potentially dangerous papers after 

the message itself had gone. This required an 

exceptional power of recollection, but he had 

an exceptional power of recollection and it 

had been trained from boyhood in rotelearning: 

he could repeat the entirety of the 

Aeneid, and he had the private code by heart 

– the code, that is to say, in which he and Sir 

Joseph Blaine, the head of naval intelligence, 

wrote to one another.


God between us and evil, my dear Joseph, 

he began, but I believe I can report 

an uncommonly promising beginning, 

an uncommonly promising situation, 

with things moving at an 

extraordinary, dreamlike speed. To begin 

with I was introduced to General 

Hurtado, a former Knight of Malta, who, 

though a soldier, is very much in favour 

of independence, partly because 

Charles IV was rude to his father but 

even more because both the present 

Viceroy and his predecessor seemed to 

him trifling ill-bred upstarts; this is not 

an unusual pattern in Spain and here 

the animosity is very much increased by 

the fact that in a letter the present Viceroy 

omitted the Excelenzia to which Hurtado 

is by courtesy entitled; yet what is


more unexpected by far is that he is 

strongly opposed to slavery and that although 

he holds a command from 

which most officers have hitherto retired 

with enough wealth to ballast the ship 

that took them back to Spain, he is 

quite poor. As for his hatred of slavery, 

he shares it with several of my friends 

who were also Knights of Malta and I 

believe it comes from his time in the 

galleys of the Order: and as for the 

king's rudeness, it consisted of addressing 

the general's father as 'my relative' 

rather than 'my cousin', which was due 

to his rank, an offence never to be forgotten, 

since Hurtado is immeasurably 

proud. 

It was indeed the Knights of Malta who 

brought us cordially well acquainted, for 

although I had an excellent introduction


from a political point of view, it was our 

many common friends in the Order that 

gave our meetings quite a different aspect 

– our common friends and our 

common attachment to the Sierra Leone 

scheme for settling liberated slaves, to 

which we are both subscribers. 

The first occasion was a ride in the 

barren wastes that lie beyond the reach 

of irrigation all round Lima. These expeditions 

are called hunting, and on 

feast-days the more athletic citizens 

urge their horses about the stony deserts 

in search of a more or less fabulous 

creature said to resemble a hare 

and blaze away at the very few things 

that move, usually a dingy, inedible 

passerine which I take to be a dwarvish 

subspecies of Sturnus horridus. I collected 

three beetles for you, of which all


I can say is that they belong to the pentamera 

and that I am astonished that 

even such meagre, attenuated creatures 

could scrape a living from the desolation 

we travelled over. The General was 

more fortunate. He brought down a 

singularly beautiful tern, the Sterna ynca 

of Suarez: I can only suppose that it was 

taking a direct path from a curve in the 

river to some better fishing-ground 

along the coast; but the event was so 

rare, so nearly unknown, that it gave 

the General the utmost satisfaction – he 

declared there could be no finer omen 

for our future conversations. 

A good omen is always welcome: yet if 

it were not presumptuous I should feel 

inclined to say that there is comparatively 

little doubt about the outcome of 

these conversations, three of the high


ecclesiastics and four governors being 

already wholly committed to us, together 

with those for whom they speak; 

while the officers in command of the 

regiments that must be moved are tolerably 

venal men, and we have ample 

funds at hand. Yet at the same time certain 

forms must still be observed: there 

must be persuasion, a gentle violence, 

before they can decently fall. 

We are to have a preliminary meeting 

without these gentlemen on Wednesday 

to arrange the details of payment and 

to decide whether Castro should be invited 

to the main conference on Friday. 

He is being very discreetly sounded at 

this moment, in the palace itself: the 

empty palace, for the Viceroy is hurrying 

to quell a disturbance in far northern 

Peru. He left with his military house-


hold and some other troops soon after I 

had met the last of our friends here who 

were still in Lima and he is already ten 

days' journey along the road. 

I could not have come at a more fortunate 

moment, when the Viceroy had 

alienated so many of the Creoles and 

so much of the army; when the desire 

for independence had risen to such a 

height; when he was about to remove 

himself and his surest friends from the 

capital; and when the ground had been 

to a certain extent prepared. It would 

perhaps have been wiser to start with 

Chile, where Bernardo O'Higgins (close 

kin to our Vicar-General) has so considerable 

a following; but given the present 

aspect of affairs, to say nothing of 

my direct, explicit instructions, I believe 

we may do very well here. It is true that


time is all-important, with that smooth 

coordination of troop-movements, declarations, 

and the summoning of a Peruvian 

council that will present the Viceroy 

with a fait accompli on his return, a 

very well established fait accompli, with 

all these movements carried out and an 

overwhelming force in the citadel; yet 

most fortunately General Hurtado has 

an unusual sense of the passing hour, 

and he is a most capable chief of staff, 

the most capable in the Spanish service. 

'How I wish I could give you the results 

of the full conference or even of the 

preliminary meeting, but I am to ride 

into the mountains directly, and the 

messengers who carry this to the Atlantic 

coast will be gone before I can be 

back. May I beg you to send the enclosed 

half-sheet down to Hampshire?'


My dear, he wrote on the half-sheet in 

question, this is the merest hasty scribble 

to bring you both my fondest love 

from our most recent port of call, and to 

tell you that all is well with us, except for 

poor Martin, who has been obliged to 

be sent home for his health. With the 

blessing, this note will reach you some 

three months before he arrives: please 

tell his wife that I am confident she will 

see him quite restored. 

This is a pleasant climate, for gentle 

sea-breezes temper the heat; but they 

assure me it never rains at all, not at all, 

ever; and although there are damp fogs 

throughout the winter they are not 

enough to relieve the almost total sterility 

of the desert, stony or sandy, that lies 

along the coast, the virtual absence of


life, animal or vegetable. Yet I have already 

achieved one of my greatest ambitions: 

I have seen the condor. And 

you will be pleased to learn that I have 

already collected seven distinct species 

of mouse (five inhabit the fringe of the 

desert, one its very heart, and the seventh 

was making a nest in my papers), 

while the rivers, of course, which are 

fed from the high far-off snows and 

which therefore flow their strongest in 

the summer, provide their valleys and 

their irrigated fields with a valuable 

flora and fauna. But it is the high mountain 

that I long to see, with its plants 

and creatures unlike any others in the 

world; at this moment I am booted and 

spurred for a journey to the moderate 

heights. My mule stands in a courtyard 

close at hand, and across his saddle-


bow he bears a poncho, an oblong 

piece of cloth with a hole in the middle, 

through which I shall put my head when 

I reach five or six thousand feet. 

Now God bless you, my dearest love; 

and pray kiss Brigit for me. 

He sat back, reflecting with the utmost tenderness 

upon his wife Diana, that fierce, spirited 

young woman, and upon their daughter, 

whom he had not seen but whom he pictured 

as a very small child in a pinafore, walking by 

now, perhaps already conversable. Once 

again his watch broke in upon his wandering 

thoughts: a watch that would have been a 

more valuable guide if he had wound it the 

night before. He folded his papers, carried 

them into Gayongos' private room, and rehearsed 

his direction once more. 'You cannot 

miss it,' said Gayongos, 'but I wish you may


get there before nightfall. You are starting 

more than three hours late.' Stephen bent his 

head; he could not but admit it. 'And there is a 

cruel wind blowing right in your face,' added 

Gayongos. He led Stephen through a daedal 

of passages and stables to a courtyard where 

the mule was standing, a tall, intelligent animal 

that recognized their destination after their 

first two or three turns through Lima streets, 

making his way through the gate beyond the 

Misericordia convent without guidance and 

striking into the road that ran a little north of 

east towards the mountains along the left of 

the river, a fine turbulent great stream, growing 

day by day as the season advanced. The 

road was not much frequented at present, 

though on Friday and Saturday it would be full 

of people going up to the shrine of Our Lady 

of Huenca; and it grew less beyond the limits 

of irrigated land. The mule was an ambler


with a long easy motion and Stephen sat quite 

relaxed upon his back: the river-banks had a 

reasonable population of birds, while the occasional 

reptile crossed the road and large flying 

beetles were common as long as the 

carob-groves lasted. Part of Stephen's mind 

recorded them, but the strong east wind and 

the dust made it hard to see with any sharp 

definition and in any case the rest of his being 

was so taken up with the possibility, indeed 

the strong probability, of a brilliant success for 

his mission within the next eight days or even 

less that he never stopped or reached for his 

pocket-glass. The whole scheme had matured 

so quickly, because of his excellent relations 

with Hurtado and O'Higgins and above all 

because of the Viceroy's departure, that his 

spirits, usually so well under control, were now 

in something of a fluster. This was a condition 

he had seen often enough in his colleagues,


but finding it in himself put him somewhat out 

of countenance. 

Once more he went over the various moves, 

the replacing of stated regiments by others, 

the convocation of wholly committed supporters, 

the summoning of a council, the issue of 

a proclamation, the rapid dispatch of guns to 

command three essential bridges: as he 

named them in order they seemed simple 

enough, and his heart beat so that he could 

hear it. Yet he had some acquaintance with 

the military mind, the Spanish military mind, 

and with that of the Spanish conspirator; and 

before now he had seen a series of actions 

that were simple in themselves, but that had of 

necessity to be carried out in sequence, fall 

into hopeless chaos for want of a sense of 

time, for want of common efficiency, or because 

of hidden jealousies. 

He wished he had not used such confident,


presumptuous words in writing to Blaine. From 

very early times men had believed that it was 

unwise, even impious, to tempt fate: the ancient 

generations were not to be despised. The 

confident system of his youth – universal reform, 

universal changes, universal happiness 

and freedom – had ended in something very 

like universal tyranny and oppression. The ancient 

generations were not to be despised; 

and the seamen's firm belief that Friday was 

unlucky was perhaps less foolish than the philosophe's 

conviction that all the days of the 

week could be rendered happy by the application 

of an enlightened system of laws. He 

wished the main conference had not been set 

for Friday. 

Blushing at his momentary weakness, he 

turned his mind to Hurtado. The General 

might have some small absurdities such as a 

delight in being fine (he wore the stars of his


three orders at all times) and setting an inordinate 

value on pedigree: he took more 

pleasure in recounting the stages of his descent, 

through his maternal grandmother, 

from Wilfred the Shaggy than in speaking of 

the four brilliant victories he had won as 

commander or the other battles in which he 

had served with such distinction. On all other 

subjects however he was not only a rational 

being but one with an unusually acute and 

ready mind: an active man, a born organizer, 

and an uncommonly effective ally in such a 

concern. His abilities, his known honesty, his 

high reputation in the army, and his influence 

throughout Peru made him the most valuable 

friend that ever Stephen could have found. 

The white milestones filed by, and many 

crosses commemorating death by earthquake, 

murder, accident. For some little while the 

mule had not been pacing uphill with the


same steady determination. He had been gazing 

from side to side; and now, giving Stephen 

a significant look, he turned off the road into 

the last carob-trees. By this point the road had 

wound some way from the Rimac, which could 

be heard roaring in the gorge below, but a 

small tributary stream ran through among the 

trees and in this Stephen and the mule drank 

heartily. 

'You are a good honest creature, sure, and 

you bear an excellent character,' said Stephen, 

'so I shall take off your saddle, confident you 

will not play the fool.' 

The mule flung himself to the ground and 

rolled, waving his legs; and while Stephen sat 

under the lee of a carob's wall (each tree was 

surrounded by what looked like a well-head) 

grazed on what meagre herbage the grove 

could provide. Stephen ate bread and good 

Peruvian cheese with Peruvian wine; and in


doing so he thought of the little girls, their 

apology the next day (Sarah: 'Sir, we are come 

to ask pardon for our wicked drunken folly.' 

Emily: 'For our wanton drunken folly.') and 

their words to Mr Wilkins, their voices piping 

alternately, clearly audible from below when 

Stephen had been chivvied right forward by 

Pullings and Mr Adams, who were bargaining 

with some merchants who wished to buy the 

Alastor: 'Yes, sir, and after Mass' – 'There was 

an organ: do you know what an organ is, sir?' 

– 'We went aboard a grand carriage drawn by 

mules with purple harness together with the 

Doctor and Father Panda'. 'There was a 

square with a lady on a column in the middle' 

– 'The column was forty foot high' – 'And the 

lady was made of bronze' – 'She had a trumpet 

and water came out of it' – 'And it came 

out of eight lions' heads too' – 'Out of twelve 

lions' heads, booby' – 'It was surrounded by six


huge enormous iron chains' – 'And four and 

twenty twelve-pounders' – 'The merchants 

paved two of the streets with silver ingots once' 

– 'They weighed ten pounds apiece' – 'About a 

foot long, four inches broad, and two or three 

inches deep.' 

He had nearly finished his meal when he felt 

the mule's breath on the back of his neck: then 

the long, smooth, large-eyed face came down 

and delicately took the last piece of bread 

from his knee, a crust. 'You are a sort of tame 

mule, I find,' he said. And indeed the creature's 

gentleness, the kind way in which he 

stood to be saddled and his fine willing stride 

gave Stephen a higher opinion of his owner, 

the Vicar-General, an austere man in his ordinary 

dealings. The mule's name was Joselito. 

Stephen mounted: out of the grove there was 

more wind now, more wind by far, right in 

their faces, and the road climbed, winding


and for ever rising with tall, very tall, many 

branched columnal cactuses on either hand 

and little else apart from smaller cactuses with 

even crueller thorns. This was the first time in 

Stephen's life that he had ever ridden in a 

strange country paying so little attention to his 

surroundings; and although on occasion he 

had had a hand, even a directing hand, in 

matters of great importance, this was the first 

time that so much depended on his success, 

and the first time that the crisis, the decision, 

was drawing so near with such speed. He did 

not even notice two barefoot friars though the 

mule had been pointing his ears in their direction 

for a quarter of a mile until he was almost 

upon them and they standing on an outward 

corner, their beards streaming in the wind, 

looking back to the sound of hoofs. He pulled 

off his hat, called out a greeting and pushed 

on, hearing their 'Go with God' as he turned


in yet another traverse, the road now high up 

on the steep side of the valley, with the stream 

a great way below. 

He met a few small scattered groups, Indians 

coming down from the high pasture; and 

presently the road climbed to a saddle where 

the wind, a cold wind now, took them with 

great force. Before crossing it he steered 

Joselito into a less exposed hollow, where 

travellers before him had lighted fires, burning 

whatever little scrub they could find. Here, at 

what he judged to be some five thousand feet, 

he gave the mule his other loaf – no great 

sacrifice, since anxiety of a vague, diffused 

nature had eaten his own appetite – and put 

on the poncho, a simple garment with no 

sleeves, easier to manage than a cloak. The 

sky was still a fine light blue above them, unclouded 

here by dust; before him, when he 

turned, stretched the foothills and the plain,


somewhat veiled, with the Rimac running 

through it to the immense Pacific, the coastline 

as clear as a map, and the island of San 

Lorenzo, beyond Callao, rising sharply from it, 

with the sun directly beyond, two hours from 

the somewhat blurred horizon. No ships in the 

offing that he could see, but below him on the 

road, no great way off, there was a party of 

horsemen, quite a large party, bound no 

doubt for the monastery of San Pedro or that 

of San Pablo, both of them in the mountains 

far ahead and both of them frequented for retreats, 

particularly by soldiers. 

The poncho was a comfort; so was the way 

the road went down after they had crossed the 

saddle to a new valley with higher, farther 

mountains rising beyond, range after range. 

But this did not last long. Soon it began to rise 

once more and they climbed steadily mile after 

mile, sometimes so steeply that Stephen


dismounted and walked beside the mule; and 

steadily the landscape grew more mineral. 

'I wish I had paid more attention to geology,' 

said Stephen, for on his right hand on the far 

side of the gorge the bare mountainside 

showed a great band of red, brilliant in the 

declining sun against the grey rock below and 

the black above. 'Would that be porphyry, at 

all?' 

On and on: up and always up. The air was 

thinner by now, and Joselito was breathing 

deep. Before they crossed the head of this valley 

they passed a man in a cloak whose horse 

had apparently both lost a shoe and picked 

up a stone: there was no telling, since he led 

his animal limping off the road and stood behind 

it, well out of hail. Of infinitely greater 

consequence was the prospect of yet another 

blessed downward stretch on the far side of 

the pass; yet here Stephen, if not the mule,


was disappointed, for this before them was not 

the last valley but only the prelude to an even 

higher range; and still the road climbed. 

A new and immediate anxiety added itself to 

the rest in Stephen's head and bosom, that of 

being benighted: already the sun was low behind 

them; there was twilight down there in the 

lower part of their present valley; and the 

western sky was assuming a violet tinge. 

Another half hour, a hard half hour, with 

Joselito grunting as he strode on, and there 

before them was a new ridge and the parting 

of the ways. The road split into two thinner 

paths, that on the right leading to the Benedictine 

house of San Pedro, the other to the Dominicans 

of San Pablo. Shading his eyes 

against the powerful wind, Stephen could see 

them both quite clearly, a hand's breadth 

above the rising shadow of the night.


Without the least hesitation Joselito took the 

right-hand path, and Stephen was glad of it. 

He respected the Dominicans' austere way of 

life, but he knew just how far Spanish piety 

could go and he had no wish to share their 

severity tonight. 'It would not have seemed so 

far, if I had not been so long at sea,' he said 

aloud. 'But as it is, I am destroyed entirely. 

What a delight to think of a good supper, a 

glass of wine and a warm bed.' The mule 

caught his cheerfulness if not his literal meaning 

and pressed on with renewed energy. 

It was still only twilight, but darkening fast, 

when they came to the convent. Outside the 

grey wall, before the gate, a tall solitary figure 

was pacing to and fro, and the mule ran the 

last hundred yards or so, uttering a feeble 

hoarse noise – he could utter no more – and 

nuzzled the Vicar-General's shoulder. Father 

O'Higgins' particularly Irish clerical face, hu-


mourless and stern, changed to a look of simple 

pleasure, much of which remained when 

he turned to Stephen, now dismounted, and 

asked him whether he had had a pleasant 

ride, whether it had not seemed too long, with 

this untimely wind? 

'Not at all, Father,' said Stephen. 'If I had not 

been so fresh from the sea, with my legs unused 

to the unyielding ground, it would not 

have seemed a great way at all, far from it indeed, 

particularly with so grand and highstepping 

a mule as Joselito, God bless him.' 

'God bless him,' said Father O'Higgins, patting 

the mule's withers. 

'Yet the wind makes me anxious for those at 

sea: we can take shelter, where they can not.' 

'Very true, very true,' said the priest, and the 

wind howled over the convent wall. 'Poor 

souls: God be with them.'


'Amen,' said Stephen, and they walked in. 

Compline, at San Pedro's, was traditionally 

very long, and the choir-monks were still singing 

the Nunc dimittis when Stephen was woken 

and led through passages behind the chapel. 

The pure, impersonal, clear plainchant, rising 

and falling, moved his sleepy mind: the strong 

cold east wind outside the postern cleared it 

entirely. 

The path led him and the others, a line of 

lanterns, over a ridge behind the monastery 

and down into the high but comparatively fertile 

plateau beyond – excellent grazing, he 

had been told – and so towards a large summering-house, 

a borda or shieling, ordinarily 

used by those who looked after the flocks. 

From the low voices before and behind him 

Stephen gathered that some men must have 

come in not only after his arrival but after he 

had gone to bed. Presently he saw a similar


line of lanterns coming down from San Pablo, 

and the two little groups joined in the barnlike 

shieling, friends recognizing one another 

with low discreet greetings and feeling their 

way towards the benches – few lights and 

those high up. 

First there was a long prayer, chanted, to 

Stephen's surprise, by the ancient prior of the 

Matucana Capuchins: he had not known that 

the movement had so wide a base as to reconcile 

Franciscan and Dominican. 

The proceedings themselves did not interest 

him very much: there was clearly much to be 

said for admitting Castro; but equally clearly 

there was much to be said against it. Stephen 

did not possess enough knowledge either of 

Castro or of those who were speaking for or 

against his admission to form an opinion of 

much value: in any case he did not think it 

mattered a great deal one way or another.


The support or opposition of so ambiguous a 

character was neither here nor there, now that 

great armed forces were about to be moved. 

He listened to the general line however, 

sometimes dozing although the backless 

bench was a cruel seat for his weary frame, 

until with relief he heard Hurtado's strong soldierly 

voice: 'No, no, gentlemen, it will not do. 

There is no trusting a man who watches the 

cat so long and closely to see which way it will 

jump. If we succeed he will join us. If we do 

not he will denounce us. Remember Jose 

Rivera.' 

'That seems to have settled the question,' reflected 

Stephen. 'What joy.' And soon after 

one line set out for San Pedro, another for San 

Pablo, lit by a lop-sided moon, which was just 

as well, the wind being now so strong that lanterns 

could not be relied on.


Dear bed again, a remote sense of prime being 

sung; then an Indian lay-brother with a 

basin of quite warm water; early Mass: and 

breakfast in the small refectory. His 

neighbours were the Vicar-General, who 

greeted him kindly but who was taciturn at 

most times and even more so in the morning, 

and Father Gómez, who was not taciturn at 

all, though from his impassive, markedly Indian 

face – a brown Roman emperor – he 

might well have been. He drank a large quantity 

of maté from a gourd, observing, 'I know, 

my dear sir, that it is a waste of time trying to 

wean you from your coffee; but allow me to 

pass you these dried apricots from Chile. 

These dried Chilean apricots.' And after another 

gourd he said, 'I remember too that you 

spoke of your wish to see the high mountain, 

and some of the great Inca buildings. This, of 

course, is not the high mountain; yet it does


approach some quite lofty ground – not the 

puna, you understand, but quite lofty – and 

my nephew will be here this morning to look 

at one of our llama stations. If only the 

weather were not so disagreeable he could 

show you something of the country. I spoke of 

you when last we met, and he begged me to 

present him. 'Ah,' cried he, clasping his hands, 

'someone at last who can tell me of the birds 

of the southern ocean!'' 

'I should be charmed to tell him what little I 

know,' said Stephen. 'And surely the weather is 

not so very severe?' 

'Eduardo would not think so,' replied Father 

Gómez. 'But then he is a great hunter. And he 

creeps up mountains through ice and snow: 

he is made of brass. He had climbed Pinchincha, 

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi itself.' 

Stephen had rarely taken to a new acquaint-


ance as he took to Eduardo. To be sure, he 

had always liked the friendly, straightforward, 

wholly unaffected young on those few occasions 

he had met them, but here these rare 

and amiable qualities were combined with a 

deep interest in living things, birds, animals, 

reptiles, even plants, and a surprising knowledge 

of those of his own immense and immensely 

varied country. Not that Eduardo was 

so very young, either – such a mass of experience 

could not be accumulated in a few years 

– but he had retained the directness, modesty 

and simplicity that so often disappear as time 

goes on. Furthermore he spoke a perfectly fluent 

but agreeably accented Spanish filled with 

pleasant archaisms, which reminded Stephen 

of the English in the former northern colonies; 

though Eduardo's language lacked the somewhat 

metallic overtones of Boston. 

They sat in the cloister with their backs to the


east wall, and when Stephen had told him all 

he knew about albatrosses, which was not inconsiderable, 

he having sat with them for 

hours at their nesting places on Desolation Island, 

sometimes lifting them off to look closely 

at their eggs – all he knew, particularly about 

their flight, Eduardo spoke with great eagerness 

of the guacharo, a very singular bird he 

had discovered in a vast cavern near Cajamarca 

in the Andes, a vast cavern indeed, but 

scarcely large enough for the prodigious 

number of guacharos that tried to get in, so 

that some were left outside. It was one of 

these that Eduardo came upon, fast asleep at 

noon in the darkest place it could find, the 

hollow underside of a fallen tree, a bird about 

the size of a crow, something like a nightjar, 

something like an owl, brown and grey, 

flecked with white and black, large winged, 

fast flying. A strictly nocturnal bird, yet feeding


solely on oily nuts, seeds and fruit. 

'You astonish me,' cried Stephen. 

'I too was dumbfounded,' replied Eduardo. 

'Yet such is the case. In the season of the year 

the people of the village climb up to the cave, 

take all the young they can reach – mere balls 

of fat – and melt them down for oil, a pure 

transparent oil which they use for lamps or for 

cooking. They showed me the cauldron, they 

showed me the brimming oil-jars, astonished 

at my ignorance. I went far into the cave, 

wearing a broad hat against their droppings, 

and while they screeched and clattered over 

my head – it was like being in the midst of a 

huge swarm of bees, gigantic bees, and a din 

so that one could hardly think – I saw a small 

forest of wretched light-starved dwarvish trees, 

sprung from seeds they had voided.' 

'Pray tell me of their eggs,' said Stephen, for


whom this was a cardinal taxonomic point. 

'They are white and unshining, like an owl's, 

and they have no sharp end. But they are laid 

in a well-shaped rounded nest made of... 

what is it?' he asked a hovering lay-brother. 

'There is a gentleman who would like to see 

the Doctor,' said the lay-brother, handing a 

card. It bore an agreed name and Stephen 

excused himself. 

'He is cooling his horse outside the gatehouse,' 

said the lay-brother. 

There were two or three other people doing 

the same after their ride up the last steep hill 

and Stephen had to look quite hard before he 

made out Gayongos in military uniform, cavalry 

moustache and a great slouch hat, which 

surprised him, disguise being almost unknown 

at this level of intelligence; but he had to admit 

that although unprofessional it was effec-


tive. Gayongos had a powerful, well lathered 

stone-horse in his hand: the animal had 

clearly come up the road at a great pace. 

'A man called Dutourd has reached Lima 

from Callao,' he said in a low tone as they 

walked the horse up and down. 'He is running 

about saying that he was ill-treated as a prisoner 

in the Surprise: ill-treated and robbed, 

that Captain Aubrey is not what he seems, that 

the Surprise is not a privateer but a King's 

ship, and that you are probably a British 

agent. He has found out some of the French 

mission and he harangued them in a loud 

voice in Julibrissin's crowded coffee-house until 

they became uneasy and walked off. Then 

he told another tale about an ideal projected 

republic. He makes a great deal of noise. His 

Spanish is incorrect but ready enough. He 

says he is an American, and he had a privateer 

sailing under American colours.'


'How did he get away, I wonder?' asked 

Stephen inwardly: the probable answer came 

at once. 'It is vexing,' he said to Gayongos. 

'And at an earlier time it might have been 

most inconvenient, even disastrous; but now it 

is of no great consequence. The French will 

never take him seriously – will never compromise 

themselves with such a talkative enthusiast: 

with such a fool. He is incapable of keeping 

quiet. Nor will anyone else. In any case, I 

believe things have moved too far to be affected 

by his vapours. Consider: any complaint, 

any representations that he may make 

would have to be dealt with by the civil authorities. 

In a matter of twenty-four hours or so 

a military government will have taken power 

and until independence is proclaimed the civil 

authorities will not exist.' 

'Yes,' said Gayongos. 'That was my view: but 

I thought you ought to be told. How did the


meeting go?' 

'It was decided not to admit Castro.' 

Gayongos nodded, but his face was somewhat 

doubtful as he remounted. 'What shall I 

do with Dutourd?' he asked. 'Shall I have him 

suppressed? He makes such a noise.' 

'No. Denounce him to the Inquisition,' said 

Stephen, smiling. 'He is a most infernal heretic.' 

Gayongos however was not much given to 

merriment and there was no answering smile 

on his face as he set off in a shower of small 

stones and a cloud of dust for San Pablo, to 

give his journey another face. The dust drifted 

westward, perceptibly slower than it would 

have done a few hours earlier. 

'Their nest is made of mud,' said Eduardo; 

and while Stephen was digesting this he prepared 

a ball of coca-leaves, passed his soft


leather bag, and observed, 'The wind is dropping 

somewhat.' 

'So it is indeed,' said Stephen, glancing at a 

group of people, who had just come into the 

cloister: early pilgrims were beginning to arrive 

in both monasteries. 'I hope you will not 

find your journey to the llama-farm too arduous.' 

'Oh, not at all: though I thank you for your 

kindness. I am accustomed to the mountain, 

even to the puna, the very high mountain; 

though I confess that such a blow, at this time 

of the year and on this side of the Cordillera, 

is almost unheard of. How I wish it would drop 

a little more – and from the sky I believe it 

may – so that you might be induced to come 

at least as far as Hualpo, our main llama station.' 

'Fortified by coca-leaves, I should have no


hesitation in setting out within the next quarter 

of an hour,' said Stephen. 

'Once their virtuous principle is infused into 

my whole being, I shall bare my bosom to the 

blast with perfect equanimity. It will not be 

long; already I feel that agreeable insensibility 

invading my pharynx. But first pray tell me 

about the llama. I am pitifully ignorant of the 

whole tribe – have never seen a living specimen 

and only very few indifferent bones.' 

'Well, sir, there are only two wild kinds, the 

vicuña, a little orange creature with a long 

silky fleece that lives high up, close to the 

snow, though sometimes we see a few above 

Hualpo, and the guanaco. We see some of 

them too – where would the puma be, were it 

not for the guanaco? – but they are more 

usual in Chile and right down to Patagonia. 

They are more easily tamed than the vicuña, 

and they are the ancestors of the llama and


the alpaca, the llamas being bred for riding 

and carrying burdens, and the alpaca, smaller 

animals that we keep higher up, just for wool. 

Both give quite good meat, of course, though 

some say not nearly as good as mutton. In my 

opinion, mutton...' He coughed, blew his 

nose, and rolled another ball of coca-leaves; 

but to a reasonably attentive, sympathetic listener 

it was clear that the Inca – for Eduardo 

was of the pure blood – regarded sheep as an 

unwelcome Spanish introduction. 

This became more apparent later in the day, 

when they rode eastward across the plateau, 

and rounding a knoll studded with the tallest 

many-branched cactuses Stephen had yet 

seen, came upon a flock gathered in a sheltered 

hollow, grazing close together, all facing 

one way. For the last few miles Eduardo had 

been talking away with the greatest animation,


telling Stephen of a white-muzzled bear he 

had once met in a coca-grove and pointing 

out a variety of small birds (this country, 

though bare, was very far from being the desert 

of the coastal plain), but his cheerful face 

changed on seeing the flock running away, all 

in the same direction. 'Sheep. Well may they 

be called sheep,' he said indignantly, and putting 

his fingers to his mouth he uttered a piercing 

whistle which set them running faster still. 

This brought the Indian shepherds out from 

behind the rocks and while one, with the dogs, 

brought the sheep to order, the others raced 

towards the horses, calling out in submissive 

tones. But Eduardo rode on, and it was some 

minutes before he recovered his gaiety, describing 

the lake of Chinchaycocha, no great 

way farther to the east, but something of a 

climb, being at thirteen thousand feet: it was 

surrounded by reed-beds and it had a won-


derful population of water-fowl. 'But unhappily,' 

he said, 'I know their names only in 

Quichua, the language of my people: I have 

found no learned descriptions, with Latin 

names, genus and species. For example there 

is a splendid goose we call huachua which 

has dark green wings, merging to violet...' 

The plateau broke away in broad sloping terraces 

to a stream far below, and here the 

country was richer by far, with stretches of a 

crop called quinua, a species of chaenopodium, 

and fields of barley with dry-stone 

walls – stone in great plenty, lying in shattered 

heaps – and on the edge of one field a stray 

sheep. 'Sheep again,' said Eduardo with disapproval. 

Down the stream, far on the right 

hand, there was an Indian village, but he 

turned to the left, telling Stephen a little anxiously 

that although the lofty slope on the 

other side looked high it was not really very


steep or far, that the llama-farm was only just 

over the top – really a little low for llamas – 

and this path would get them there much 

quicker. 

So it did, but only, as far as Stephen was 

concerned, at the cost of much gasping and 

great concentration as he led his horse up the 

cruel shaley track, keeping up with Eduardo's 

elastic step as well as he could but necessarily 

losing his explanation of several small birds 

and plants and a lizard. Beetles crossed the 

path unexamined, uncollected. As they 

climbed they were under the lee of the eastern 

wall: they could hear the wind high overhead 

but they felt no more than the occasional 

eddy; and in the still thin clear air the sun beat 

down. Whenever Eduardo found that he had 

drawn more than a few yards ahead he 

paused to cough or blow his nose; and this 

was the first time Stephen had ever known


consideration for his age cause a young man 

to check his pace. He took another ball of 

coca-leaves, bent his head and watched his 

feet. Although his words to Gayongos had 

been perfectly sound, the wretched Dutourd 

would thrust his way up into some level of 

Stephen's mind just below full consciousness, 

an unreasonable haunting anxiety. Physical 

exertions helped; the coca-leaves had their 

usual charming effect; but it was not until a 

great gust struck him that he realized they 

were at the top and that the anxiety gave way 

to a lively interest in the present. 

'Here we are,' cried Eduardo. And there they 

were indeed: massy stone buildings on yet another 

high plateau, corrals, distant herds, an 

Indian girl mounted on a llama who threw 

herself off and came running to kiss Eduardo's 

knee. 

Stephen was led to a respectable barn,


seated on a faggot covered with a herb related 

to lady's bedstraw, and handed a gourd 

of maté with a silver tube. The Indians were 

perfectly civil and obliging, but they had no 

smile for him: this had been the case with all 

the few Indians he had met: a gloomy nation 

by all appearances, unsocial, quite withdrawn. 

It was therefore with some amazement that he 

observed their delight in Eduardo's presence, 

their cheerfulness, and even, in spite of their 

profound respect, their laughter, which he had 

never heard before. Eduardo spoke to them 

only in Quichua, which came trippingly off his 

tongue: he had apologized to Stephen beforehand, 

saying that most of them did not 

know Spanish and that some of those who did 

preferred to conceal their knowledge. 

Now, however, turning to Stephen he said in 

that language, 'Sir, allow me to show you a 

guanaco in the field outside. He is the wild


ancestor of the llama, as you will recall, but 

this one was caught young, and now he is 

quite tame.' 

'A fine animal,' said Stephen, looking at the 

slim elegant fawn-coloured white-bellied creature, 

which held its long neck high and returned 

his gaze quite fearlessly. 'About twelve 

hands, I believe.' 

'Twelve hands exactly, sir. And here, coming 

up the path, is our best llama: his name in 

Quichua means spotless snow.' 

'An even finer animal,' said Stephen, turning 

to watch the llama walk delicately up the path 

with an Indian boy, balancing its head delicately 

from side to side. He had barely fixed 

his attention upon the llama, estimating its 

height and weight, before the guanaco, gathering 

itself, bounded forward with both front 

knees bent and struck him a little below the


shoulder-blades, sending him flat on his face. 

In the general outcry while Stephen was 

picked up and dusted and the guanaco led 

away by the ears, the llama stood unmoved, 

looking scornful. 

'Mother of God,' cried Eduardo, 'I am so 

sorry, so ashamed.' 

'It is nothing, nothing at all,' said Stephen. 'A 

childish tumble on the grass, no more. Let us 

ask the llama how he does.' 

The llama stood his ground as they approached, 

eyeing Stephen with much the 

same look as the guanaco, and when he was 

well within range, spat in his face. The aim 

was perfect, the saliva extraordinarily copious. 

Outcry and hullabaloo again, but only Eduardo 

seemed really deeply moved and as 

Stephen was being washed and wiped he saw 

two Indian children in the far background


fairly twisting themselves double with delight. 

'What can I say?' asked Eduardo. 'I am desolated, 

desolated. It is true they sometimes do 

that to people who vex them, and sometimes 

to white men who do not. I should have 

thought of it... but after we had been talking 

for a while I forgot your colour.' 

'May I beg for some maté?' asked Stephen. 

'That most refreshing drink.' 

'Instantly, instantly,' cried Eduardo, and coming 

back with the gourd he said, 'Just beyond 

that small sharp peak is where we keep the 

alpacas. From there one can sometimes see a 

band of vicuñas, and quite often too the small 

fluttering rock-creeper we call a pito; it is no 

great way, and I had hoped to carry you up 

there, but now I am afraid it is too late. And 

perhaps you have had enough of llamas and 

their kind.'


'Not at all, not at all,' cried Stephen. 'But it is 

true that I must not be late at the convent.' 

Going down, Eduardo grew sadder as they 

lost height: his spirits declined with the slope 

of the path, and as they rested among the 

shattered boulders of another gigantic rockfall, 

the result of the most recent earthquake 

and barely lichened yet, Stephen, to divert his 

mind, said, 'I was pleased to see your people 

so happy and gay. I had formed a false notion 

from my trifling experience in and about Lima, 

supposing them to be almost morose.' 

'A people that has had its ancient laws and 

customs taken from it, whose language and 

history count for nothing, and whose temples 

have been sacked and thrown down is apt to 

be morose,' replied Eduardo: then, recollecting 

himself, 'I do not say that this is the state of 

affairs in Peru; and it would be the grossest 

heresy to deny the benefits of the true religion:


I say only that this is what some of the more 

obstinate Indians, who may secretly practise 

the old sacrifices, believe; and – pray do not 

move,' he said in a low urgent voice, nodding 

towards the far side of the valley, there where 

the terraces and fields ran down to the stream. 

Against the mountain a band of condors were 

circling, rising, but to no great height; and as 

Stephen watched, three of them perched on 

convenient rocks. 

'If you train your little spyglass on the edge of 

the barley, halfway down,' said Eduardo in little 

more than a whisper, 'you will see the stray 

sheep, ha, ha.' Stephen rested the glass in a 

crack between two rocks, brought the edge of 

the field into focus, travelled down to a patch 

of white: but there was a tawny puma covering 

most of it, slowly eating mutton. 

'They often do that,' murmured Eduardo. 'The 

condors come quite soon after he has killed


his prey – they seem to watch him as he travels 

– and wait until he is gorged. Then he 

creeps off into shelter and they come down; 

but he cannot bear seeing them at it – he 

rushes out – they rise – he eats a little more – 

retires – and they return. There. He is going 

off already.' 

'Our vultures are more circumspect,' said 

Stephen. 'They will wait for hours, whereas 

these are in directly. Lord, how they eat! I 

should not have missed this for the world. 

Thank you, my dear Eduardo, for showing me 

the puma, that noble beast.' 

Riding back they discussed the whole event in 

minute detail – the exact angle and splay of 

the condors' primaries as they settled on a 

crag, the movement of their tails, the dissatisfied 

look on the puma's face when it came 

back for the third time to nothing but a heap 

of the larger bones. Having talked themselves


hoarse, almost shouting over the declining but 

still powerful wind, they reached the monastery 

in reasonable time. Here they supped with a 

numerous company in the main refectory and 

Stephen retired to his cell as soon as grace 

was said. He had not eaten much, he had 

drunk less, and now (another usual consequence 

of ingesting coca) he lay unsleeping, 

but not unhappy with it, his mind running over 

the day just past, regretting the untimely 

though surely unimportant Dutourd but taking 

much pleasure in the rest. At the same time he 

followed the chanting of the monks. This particular 

Benedictine house was unusually rigorous, 

separating mattins from lauds, singing 

the first at midnight, a very long service indeed 

with the full nocturn, lessons and Te Deum, 

and the second so that its middle psalm coincided 

with the rising of the sun. 

He was in a half sleep, thinking of Condor-


cet, a very, very much larger man than Dutourd 

but equally foolish in his regard for that 

silly villain Rousseau, when his ear caught a 

footstep in the passage and he was wide 

awake when Sam came in, holding a shaded 

candle. 

He was about to make some remark in Jack 

Aubrey's style, such as, 'Have you come up to 

the monastery, Sam?' when Sam's gravity 

quenched his smile. 'Forgive me for waking 

you, sir, but Father O'Higgins begs he might 

have a word.' 

'Certainly he may,' said Stephen. 'Pray pass 

me my breeches in the corner there. As you 

see I lie in my shirt.' 

'Doctor,' said the Vicar-General, rising and 

placing a chair, 'you know there is a clandestine 

French mission to the independentists 

here?' Stephen bowed. 'They have recently


been joined or rather sought out by a noisy 

talkative enthusiast who has already thrown 

much discredit on them – I believe they will 

slip out of the country – and who has almost 

directly asserted that you are a British agent. It 

is true that the Holy Office has taken him up 

for some shocking blasphemies in the style of 

Condorcet uttered in public, but Castro has 

already seized upon the event to ingratiate 

himself with the Viceroy. 'Heretical foreign 

gold' he cries: he has had one small mob 

bawling outside the British consulate and another 

has broken the windows of the house 

where the Frenchmen were staying. Until the 

Viceroy comes back he can do no more, and 

General Hurtado will probably knock him on 

the head tomorrow – I mean reduce him to silence. 

But the General is not to be found in 

Lima, nor is he at his brother's: he is much 

given to gallantry. We shall not see him until


the conference at noon, and although I think it 

is weakness on my part I feel somewhat uneasy. 

A man of Castro's stamp is incapable of 

doing much good but he may do a great deal 

of harm, and I think we were unwise in rejecting 

him. I tell you these things, because if you 

share my weakness you may wish to take your 

measures, in the event of our being right.' 

Stephen made suitable acknowledgements 

and observed, 'As far as regretting the rejection 

of an unreliable man is concerned, I think 

you may be mistaken. He could never have 

been trusted, and he would have come into 

the possession of a great many names.' 

He returned to his cell carrying pens, ink and 

a quire of paper; and as he went he reflected 

on the unsoundness of his words. The rest of 

the night he spent writing. At sunrise, still not 

at all sleepy, he folded his papers, put them 

into his bosom, and walked into the chapel to


hear the Benedictus. 

In the later part of the morning large numbers 

of people began to arrive at the two 

monasteries, many of them pilgrims coming 

early for the exposition, some of them members 

of the league, among whom there was a 

general tendency to silence and anxious looks. 

Messengers had been posted on the road to 

intercept General Hurtado with a letter telling 

him of Castro's activities so that he should be 

prepared to reassure the meeting and to take 

instant decisive measures. 

He did not come. In his place there appeared 

Gayongos, old, grey, his face destroyed: 

he told Stephen, the Vicar-General, 

Father Gómez and Sam that Hurtado, extremely 

moved, had declared that with these 

cries of foreign gold abroad, repeated on 

every hand, and in this atmosphere of corruption 

he could not, as a man of honour, con-


sider any further action at this moment. 

They wasted no time in expostulation. 

Stephen asked whether Castro could possibly 

seize the ship. 'Certainly not,' said Father 

O'Higgins. 'Not until the Viceroy returns, and 

even then it is extremely improbable. But he 

may well risk a provisional arrest of your person 

on some pretext or other. You must go to 

Chile. I have prepared a letter to my kinsman 

Bernardino for you. He will take you to Valparaiso, 

where you can go on board your ship.' 

'Eduardo will show you the way,' said Father 

Gómez. 'You will be in no danger with him,' 

he added with a curious smile. 

Turning to Gayongos Stephen asked whether 

any of the actual treasure had been transferred. 

'No,' said Gayongos. 'Apart from a few 

thousands, nothing but drafts on the provisional 

government. The gold was to have


been distributed tomorrow afternoon.' 

'Then pray retain it in a readily movable form 

until you receive word,' said Stephen, and to 

Sam, 'Father Panda, here is the merest note 

for Captain Aubrey: he will be in quite soon I 

am sure and you will explain things far better 

than I could do.' They all shook hands, and in 

the doorway Gayongos said, 'I feel so much 

for your disappointment. Pray accept this parting 

gift.' Silent tears, utterly astonishing on that 

grey, dewlapped face, ran down as he 

handed Stephen an envelope.


NINE 

Early on Wednesday the east wind, which 

had been dying all night, at last expired in a 

peaceful calm: no more whirling dust, no 

more banging shutters, falling tiles; a blessed 

quietness. By the time the sun had risen ten 

degrees or so the sea-breeze began to waft in 

and by mid-morning it was blowing a moderate 

gale from the south-west: the Surprise 

could have carried full topsails, but Tom Pullings, 

less given to cracking-on than his Captain, 

would have had a reef in them. 

It blew steadily all that day and the next and 

on Friday Tom pulled over to San Lorenzo 

once more, walked across the island and so


up to a point below the beacon, from which 

he commanded an immense stretch of ocean 

bounded by a hard, unusually distinct horizon. 

He swept this clear line with his glass, and 

there indeed, due west, was what he had been 

looking for yesterday afternoon and evening, 

slowly drinking cold tea as he did so – a remote 

fleck of white in the sun between sea 

and sky. He climbed up to the beacon itself, 

sitting where a rock-fall gave him a firm rest 

for the telescope and focused with the utmost 

care. At this height she was already topsails 

up, with another ship behind her; and well before 

likelihood became certainty his heart was 

eased, filled with happiness. She was surely 

the Franklin, and she was bringing in a prize. 

Presently, when the sun was hot on the back 

of his head, she was hull up, and he was 

wholly satisfied, head and heart. He had 

commanded her, and now he could not be


mistaken. He might go back to the Surprise 

with an easy mind and sit in peace, admiring 

her new rigging, all fresh-rove and set up, all 

blacked where blacking was called for; yards 

likewise. And he could tell Father Panda. 

For days now Tom had been growing more 

and more worried, with the Doctor away and 

the Reverend coming every night for news of 

the Captain, clearly anxious, clearly aware 

that something ugly was up, bringing the sick 

back, advising him to close with the men bargaining 

for the prizes, to get the barky out of 

the yard, watered, victualled and ready to 

weigh, all shore-leave stopped. And certainly 

there was something very odd about the town, 

with people running about and behaving 

strange. Some who had always been civil and 

more than civil had grown rather shy. The 

master of the rope-walk for example: all 

smiles and a glass of vino on Sunday, re-


served, if not downright chuff, on Monday. 

The ship-chandlers and the dockyard people 

had become very eager for their money. On 

the other hand three considerable merchants 

had come to see him after dark (most visiting 

took place by night at present) and had asked 

him to carry treasure down to Valparaiso. Mr 

Adams, who spoke Spanish almost as well as 

the Doctor and who managed all business affairs, 

said that when the Viceroy came back 

there would be a fine old rumpus, all Hell to 

pay, with people copping it right and left. 

Quite why he could not tell, there being so 

many different rumours; but it seemed that the 

soldiers had been misbehaving, and perhaps 

some civilians too. 

He reached his boat – the Doctor's skiff, 

newly painted green – shoved off and made 

his way through some small-craft setting lobster-pots. 

He had noticed a good many a mile


or so off-shore, fishing in their primitive way. 

Slab-sided objects, and some of them mere 

dug-out canoes. There was not a seaman 

among them, and at no time did he pay any 

attention to their more or less facetious cries 

of 'Spik English, yis, yis,' 'Marrano,' 'Herético 

pálido.' 

One particularly obstinate bugger, a good 

way off, in a disgraceful battered old thing 

almost the size of a man-of-war's longboat but 

only pulling three lackadaisical oars, kept 

barking like a comic sea-lion, on and on, anything 

for a laugh. Pullings frowned and rowed 

a little faster, his head turned from the distant 

boat, a craft of no known form, with bits and 

pieces dangling over the gunwale. He was after 

all a commander, R.N., by courtesy called 

Captain; and he was not to be barked at by a 

parcel of seals. 

As his pace increased so the sea-lions began


to bawl out all together – a pitiful exhibition 

and much too hoarse to be amusing – but as 

the sudden clamour died away a single disgusted 

voice, not very loud, came clear across 

the quiet water: 'Oh the fucking sod.' 

That was no native cry, no heathen mockery: 

that was a naval expression, familiar to him 

from childhood, and uttered in a naval voice. 

He turned, and with a mixture of horror and 

delight he saw the massive form of his Captain 

heaving up for a final hail, clinging to the 

stump of a mast; and he recognized the shattered 

hull of the Alastor's launch. 

Having whipped the skiff round and come 

alongside he wasted no time in asking what 

had happened or telling them they looked terrible, 

but gave them his bottle of cold tea – 

they were almost speechless from thirst, lips 

black, faces inhuman – passed a line and began 

towing the launch towards the shore.


He rowed with prodigious force, rising on the 

stretcher and pulling so that the sculls creaked 

and bent under his hands. He had never seen 

the Captain look more destroyed, not even after 

the Master action: the bloody bandage 

over his eye had something to do with it, but 

quite apart from that his bearded face was 

thin and drawn, barely recognizable, and he 

moved with difficulty, like an old man, heaving 

slowly on his oar. From the skiff Pullings 

looked straight into the launch: the Captain, 

Darky Johnson and Bonden were doing what 

they could, labouring with uneven sweeps, 

roughly shaped from broken spars; Killick was 

bailing; Joe Plaice and young Ben were 

stretched out, motionless. The two boats 

scarcely seemed to move; there were nearly 

three miles to go, and at this rate they would 

not be able to go half-way before the ebb set 

in, carrying them far out to sea.


Yet the Surprise, lying there in the road, had 

three midshipmen aboard, and what they 

lacked in intelligence they made up for in 

physical activity. Reade, having but one arm, 

could no longer go skylarking, hurling himself 

about the upper rigging regardless of gravity, 

but his messmates Norton and Wedell would 

hoist him by an easy purchase to astonishing 

heights, and from these, having still one powerful 

hand and legs that could twist round any 

rope, he would plunge with infinite satisfaction. 

He was at the masthead, negligently 

holding the starboard main topgallant shrouds 

with the intention of sliding straight down the 

whole length of the topgallant backstay, well 

over a hundred feet, when his eye, wandering 

towards San Lorenzo, caught the odd spectacle 

of a very small boat trying to tow a much 

larger one. Even at this distance the very small 

boat looked surprisingly like the Doctor's pea-


green skiff. Leaning down he called, 'Norton.' 

'Ho,' replied his friend. 'Be a decent cove for 

once and send me up my glass.' 

Norton, an invariably decent cove, did more 

than that: he swarmed aloft like an ablebodied 

baboon, begged Reade to shift over 

and make room on his tiny foothold, unslung 

the telescope and handed it over, all this with 

no more gasping than if he had walked up 

one pair of stairs. Reade using a telescope 

from the masthead was a sight to turn a 

landsman pale: he had to pull the tubes right 

out, twist his one arm through the shrouds, set 

the small end to his eye and bring all into focus 

by a steady pressure. Norton was used to 

it however and he only said, 'Let's have a go, 

mate, when you've done: don't be all bloody 

night.' 

Reade's reply was a hail as loud as his breaking 

voice could make it. 'On deck, there. On


deck. Mr Grainger, sir. Right on the beam. 

Captain Pullings is trying to tow the Alastor's 

launch. Launch all mangled: something cruel. 

They are bailing: in a bad way. Captain is 

pulling, and I can make out Bonden, but...' 

The rest was drowned in the vehement cry of 

all hands and the launching of boats regardless 

of new paint not yet dry. 

The Alastor's launch and the skiff came 

alongside under the larboard chains, Bonden 

mechanically hooked on; and as hands ran 

down with the man-ropes Pullings came 

scrambling aft to help his Captain go aboard. 

'Where is the Doctor?' asked Jack, looking up 

at the rail. 

'He's ashore, sir, and has been these five or 

six days: he sent to say he was a-naturalizing 

in the mountains.' 

'Very good,' said Jack, strangely disap-


pointed, aware of an emptiness. He managed 

to get up the side with a shove, but only just. 

Even in his present state he loved his ship and 

he was heartily glad to be alive and aboard 

her again, but he could not cope with the 

quarterdeck's awed congratulations nor with 

the open amazement of all hands before the 

mast. He went as steadily as he could down 

the companion ladder and to his cabin, and 

when he had drunk four pints of water – more, 

he thought vaguely, would amount to that excess 

so fatal to cows, horses and sheep – he 

looked at Plaice and Ben in their hammocks, 

washed the filth from his person, threw off his 

clothes, ate six eggs with soft-tack, followed by 

a whole water-melon, and stretched out on his 

cot, his eyes closing as his head went down. 

A little after sunset he climbed up from a bottomless 

sleep, in a ship as silent as the grave, 

the light fading fast. He gathered himself into


the present, collecting the immediate past, 

thanked God for his delivery, and then said, 

'But what's amiss? Am I really here and alive?' 

He moved, feeling himself: the weakness was 

authentic, so was his gummed-up, itching eye 

and his unshaven face. So was his consuming 

thirst. 'Ahoy, there,' he called, but without 

much conviction. 

'Sir?' cried Grimble, Killick's mate. 

'Light along a jug of water, just tinged with 

wine.' And when he had drained it he asked, 

gasping, 'Why is the ship so quiet? No bells, Is 

anyone dead?' 

'No, sir. But Captain Pullings said any sod as 

woke you should have a hundred lashes.' 

Jack nodded and said, 'Let me have some 

warm water, and pass the word for Padeen 

and the Doctor's young man.' 

They came, but a grim, bent Killick came


hobbling in with them and for a moment Jack 

thought he would have to top it the Tartar, 

which he could hardly bear: he had underestimated 

their kindness, however, for without 

any wrangling they divided the task. Padeen, 

the acknowledged surgical dresser, very gently 

removed the soaking bandage; Fabien replaced 

the exhausted salves with others from 

the medicine-chest; Killick applied them, stating 

that as far as he could see in this light the 

eye had not suffered but that he would give a 

considered judgement come the morning; and 

Padeen dressed the place again. 'Will I shave 

you at all, sir dear?' he asked. 'Sure you would 

lay... lay...' 

'More easy,' said Killick. 

Shaved and looking almost like a man that 

might live, Jack received Pullings at the setting 

of the watch. 'How do you feel, sir?' asked 

Tom in a hushed voice.


'Pretty well, I thank you,' said Jack. 'But tell 

me, have you had any word of Dutourd?' 

'Dutourd? No, sir,' said Tom, amazed. 

'He has contrived to run, stowing away either 

in the launch or possibly the Alastor herself. 

The Doctor told me to keep him aboard, and 

we must get him back.' 

'How shall we set about it, sir?' asked Pullings. 

'That indeed is a question. Perhaps the Doctor 

will come back tonight. Perhaps I shall be 

cleverer in the morning. But meanwhile, how 

does the barky come to look so trim and spry? 

How does she come to be out of the yard so 

soon?' 

'Why, sir,' said Pullings, laughing. 'We were 

all very much at sea, our notions all ahoo. 

When the shipwrights had her clear, all we 

found was a stretch of copper clean gone, not


much bigger than that table – a whale, no 

doubt. But the worm had been at it quite 

amazingly. It still kept the water out, more or 

less, but all the members around it worked 

something horrid in anything of a sea. They 

cut the whole piece back to sound wood, replaced 

it as pretty as ever Pompey could have 

done, and clapped on new copper twice as 

thick as ours. There were those few knees that 

we knew about and some we did not; but the 

wrights were honest fellows – they made little 

of it – and now we are as stiff as ever you 

could wish.' 

'Just where...' began Jack, but on deck the 

cry 'The boat ahoy. What boat is that?' interrupted 

him. 

'I dare say that will be Father Panda,' said 

Pullings. 'He usually comes about this time, 

asking for news of you.'


'Does he, Tom?' cried Jack, flushing. 'Let him 

be brought below at once. And Tom, keep the 

after part of the quarterdeck clear, will you?' 

'Of course, sir,' said Pullings: and inclined his 

head to catch the deep, resonant answer to 

the frigate's hail; he said, 'That's him, all right. 

Perhaps he may be able to tell us how to get 

hold of Dutourd.' During the inexpert thumping 

and rattling of the boat along the side and 

the cries of 'Ship your oar, sir – clap on to the 

painter, Bill – here's t'other man-rope, Father: 

hold tight' he said, 'Oh sir, I forgot to tell you 

Franklin is in the offing with what looks like a 

prize. I will go and bring the Reverend below.' 

Sam was even taller and more massive than 

when he and his father had last met. Jack rose 

with a double effort, put his hands on those 

broad shoulders, and said, 'Sam, how very 

glad I am to see you.'


Sam's great flashing smile lit up his face and 

he, clasping Jack, cried, 'Oh sir...' Then his 

expression changed to one of the utmost concern 

as he saw the bandage and he went on, 

'But you are wounded – you are ill – let you sit 

down.' He guided Jack to his chair, lowered 

him gently into it, and sat under the hanging 

lamp gazing at him, drawn, lined and ravaged 

as he was, with such troubled affection that 

Jack said, 'Never take on so, dear Sam. My 

eye is all right, I believe – I can see pretty well. 

And for the rest, we had a rough time of it on 

a lee shore in the Alastor's launch during the 

easterly blow – she was stove, dismasted – lost 

our food and water – nothing to eat but a raw 

sea-lion. We had been forced back past the 

sea-lion island seven times and I said, 'Shipmates, 

if we don't get round and run clear on 

this tack we shall have a dirty night of it.' Well, 

we did get round, but we did not run clear.


There was a reef on the far side and in avoiding 

it we became embayed – a lee-shore in a 

strong gale – heavy seas, tide and current all 

setting us in – grapnel coming home. We had 

our dirty night, true enough, but it lasted four 

mortal days. However, we patched her up 

more or less – brought her in – it is all over 

now – and we have earned a thundering good 

supper.' He pulled the bell and called for the 

best supper the ship and his cook could produce. 

But to his distress he saw tears running 

down that ebony face, and to change the current 

of Sam's thoughts he said, 'Have you seen 

the Doctor? I had hoped he would be aboard, 

but he has not yet returned.' 

'Sure I have seen him, sir. I am after leaving 

him in the mountain.' 

'He is quite well? I am so happy. I was anxious 

for him.'


The first part of the supper came in, cold 

things the Captain's cook had under his hand 

with the ship lying off a plentiful market: roast 

beef yielded up by the gunroom with barely a 

sigh, chickens, capons, ducks, ham, quantities 

of vegetables and a great bowl of mayonnaise, 

decanters of Peruvian wine, a jug of 

barley-water that Jack emptied without thinking 

of it. He ate voraciously, swallowing as 

fast as a wolf; but he both talked at quick intervals 

between bites and listened. 'We had a 

prisoner called Dutourd,' he said, spreading 

butter on his soft-tack. 'We took him out of the 

Franklin, a privateer under American colours. 

He was a Frenchman with enthusiastic visionary 

notions about an ideal community in a 

Polynesian island – no Church, no King, no 

laws, no money, everything held in common, 

perfect peace and justice: all to be accomplished, 

as far as I could make out, by the


wholesale slaughter of the islanders. He was a 

wealthy man, the Doctor told me, and I think 

he owned the Franklin, but that was not clear: 

at all events he had no letter of marque 

though he or his skipper had preyed on our 

whalers and strictly I should have carried him 

back to England, where they would have 

hanged him for piracy. I did not like him at all, 

neither his ideas nor his manners – a confident 

scrub, very much the foreigner. But he 

did have some qualities; he was courageous 

and he was good to his people; and it seemed 

to me – Sam, the bottle stands by you – that 

piracy where he was concerned was too much 

like a lawyer's quibble, so I meant to put him 

ashore here and let him go on parole. He was 

what is ordinarily called a gentleman: an educated 

man with money, at all events.' He set 

about the cold roast beef, and when he had 

filled their plates he went on, 'An educated


man: he knew Greek – you know Greek, Sam, 

I am sure?' 

'A little, sir. We are obliged to, you know, the 

New Testament being written in Greek.' 

'In Greek?' cried Jack, his fork poised in the 

air. 'I had no idea. I thought it would naturally 

be written in – what did those wicked Jews 

speak?' 

'Hebrew, sir.' 

'Just so. But, however, they wrote it in Greek, 

the clever dogs? I am amazed.' 

'Only the New Testament, sir. And it was not 

quite the same as Homer or Hesiod.' 

'Oh, indeed? Well, I dined in the gunroom 

one day when he was also invited, and he told 

the company about those Olympic games.' He 

gazed round the almost empty table, filled 

Sam's glass, and said, 'I wonder what comes


next.' 

Beef steak and mutton chops came next, hot 

and hot, and a dish of true potatoes, fresh 

from their native Andes. 

'...Olympic games and how they valued the 

prizes. There was one of these Seven Sages, 

you know, a cove by the name of Chilon, 

whose son gained one, and the old gentleman, 

the Sage, I mean, died of joy. I remembered 

him and his mates – one of my very few 

pieces of classical learning – because when I 

was a little chap they gave me a book with a 

blue cover and a cut of the Seven Sages in it 

all looking very much alike, that I had to learn 

out of; and it began First Solon, who made 

the Athenian laws; Then Chilon, in Sparta, renowned 

for his saws. But surely, Sam, dropping 

down dead shows a very wrong set of 

ideas in a sage?'


'Very wrong indeed, sir,' said Sam looking at 

his father with great affection. 

'To be sure, he was only a sort of ironmonger, 

but even so... I once had a splendid filly 

that I hoped might win the Oaks; but if she 

had, I hope I should not have dropped down 

dead. In fact she never ran, and now I come 

to think of it the Doctor suspected that her 

lack of barrel betrayed a want of bottom. Yes. 

But in my pleasure at being in your company, 

and eating and drinking at last, I talk too 

much, almost like that French scrub Dutourd; 

and when you are fagged the wine goes to 

your head, so I wander from the point.' 

'Not at all, sir. Not at all, at all. Will I help 

you to a chop?' 

'By all means. Well, the point is this: when we 

were lying off Callao I happened to tell the 

Doctor that I was sending some French pris-


oners in. 'Not Dutourd?' cried he, and then in 

a low voice, 'That might be impolitic.' Now this 

is rather delicate and I am puzzled quite how 

to put it. Let us eat our pudding, if we are allowed 

any pudding on such short notice, and 

when we reach port perhaps my intellects will 

shine out afresh.' 

They were allowed pudding, but only apologetical 

fancies such as sago, summer's pudding 

made with what Peru could afford, and 

mere rice, rather than those true puddings 

based on suet, which called for hours and 

hours in the copper. 

Jack told Sam of a fine great sago-palm forest 

in the island of Ceram in which he had 

walked with his midshipmen and how they had 

laughed at the spectacle – a sago-forest! 

These trifles, barely worth attention, were soon 

dispatched; the cloth was drawn, the port set 

on Jack's right hand, and Grimble was told


that he might turn in. 

'Well, now, Sam,' said Jack. 'You must know 

that when the Doctor goes ashore it is not always 

just for botanizing or the like. Sometimes 

it is rather more in the political line, if you follow 

me. For example, he is very much against 

slavery; and in this case he might encourage 

people of the same opinion here in Peru. Certainly, 

by all means, very praiseworthy: but the 

authorities might take it amiss – the authorities 

in a slave-state might take it amiss. So when 

he said it would perhaps be impolitic for Dutourd, 

who knows his opinions, to be set 

ashore he may very well have seen the man as 

an informer. And there are other aspects that I 

will not touch upon: shoal water that I am not 

acquainted with, shoal water and no chart. 

But to come to the point at last – Sam, you 

must forgive me for being so slow, roundabout 

and prosy: I find it hard to concentrate


my mind this evening. But the point is this: 

Dutourd has contrived to get ashore. I am very 

much afraid he may do the Doctor harm, and 

I mean to do everything I can to get the fellow 

back on board. I beg you will help me, Sam.' 

'Sir,' said Sam. 'I am yours to command. The 

Doctor and I understand one another very well 

where his present activities are concerned. He 

has consulted me to some extent. I too am 

very much opposed to slavery and to French 

domination; so are many men I know; and as 

you say there are other aspects. As for the 

miserable Dutourd, I am afraid he is beyond 

our reach, having been taken up by the Holy 

Office last Saturday. He is now in the Casa de 

la Inquisicion, and I fear things will go very 

badly for him, once the questioning has finished; 

he was a most publicly violent blasphemous 

atheistical wretch. But he has already 

done all the harm he could do. The


Doctor's friends had arranged a change in 

government, and since the Viceroy was away 

everything was moving rapidly and smoothly 

towards the desired end, troops were being 

moved and bridges secured, all the necessary 

precautions for a peaceful change, when Dutourd 

appeared. He said the Doctor was an 

English agent and that the whole operation 

was set a-going with the help of English gold 

by purchased traitors. Nobody took much notice 

of such an enthusiast, a Frenchman into 

the bargain, stained with the crime of their 

revolution and Napoleon's against the Pope. 

But a vile official, one Castro, the black thief, 

thought he might seize upon it to curry favour 

with the Viceroy, and he made a great noise, 

hiring a mob to shout in the streets and stone 

foreigners. The whole city was alive with it. 

The chief general cried off; the movement collapsed; 

and his friends advised the Doctor to


leave the country at once. He is in the far 

mountains by now, travelling with a sure experienced 

guide towards Chile, which has a 

separate government. We consulted together 

before he left, and it was agreed that I should 

tell you he would do his utmost to be in Valparaiso 

by the last day of next month, staying 

either with the Benedictines or with don Jaime 

O'Higgins. Obviously he cannot travel so far 

over such a country in that period, but once 

he is in Chile we hope that he will be able to 

travel on by a series of small coasting vessels 

from one little port or fishing village to another 

and so reach Valparaiso in good time. We 

further agreed, sir, that until the Viceroy's return, 

which will be in three or four days now, 

you need have no fear for the ship, and even 

then direct seizure is unlikely. But we were told 

on good authority that you would be well advised 

to move her out of the yard – as indeed


Captain Pullings has done – to avoid any 

vexatious measures, such as detention for 

some alleged debt or the like. For example a 

woman is prepared to swear that Joseph 

Plaice, a member of your crew, has got her 

with child. Then again our confidential friends, 

men of business, all assert that you should sell 

your prizes directly, or if the offer do not suit, 

send them down to Arica or even Coquimbo. 

Or even Coquimbo,' repeated Sam in the allpervading 

silence. 'But I will tell it you all 

again, so I will, at half eight tomorrow,' he 

whispered. 'God bless, now.' 

Sam was an even larger man than his father, 

but he could move even more quietly. Rising 

now he moved back towards the door, 

opened it without a sound, stood there for a 

moment listening to Jack's long, even breathing, 

and vanished into the shadowy half-deck. 

After a week or ten days of steady up and


down, but very much more up than down, 

Stephen was of opinion that his head and 

lungs had adapted themselves to the thin air 

of the mountains. He had, after all, walked 

and ridden all day from their last night's resting-place, 

rising through the high alpine pastures 

to perhaps nine thousand feet without 

discomfort. Admittedly he could not have kept 

up, hour after hour, with the deep-chested Indians 

– several of them Aymaras from Eduardo's 

native Cuzco – who led the train of 

pack-llamas up the interminable slopes, many 

of them so desperately barren; yet when he 

dismounted and walked out with Eduardo over 

some promising stretch of country he did so as 

nimbly as if he were treading the Curragh of 

Kildare. 

Three times that day, and at ever-increasing 

heights, they had left their mules in the hope 

of a partridge or a guanaco, and three times


they had caught up with the llamas not indeed 

empty-handed, since Stephen carried a beetle 

or a low-growing plant for the pack of the 

animal that carried their collections, but without 

any sort of game, which meant that their 

supper would be fried guinea-pig and dried 

potatoes once more; and each time Eduardo 

had said that this was a strange, unaccountable 

year, with weather that made no sense 

and with animals abandoning customs and 

territories that had remained unchanged since 

before the days of Pachacutic Inca. To prove 

his point on the third occasion he led Stephen 

to a heap of dung, wonderfully unexpected 

and even homely in so desolate a landscape, 

a heap six feet across and several inches high 

in spite of weathering. Stephen looked at it attentively 

– ruminants' droppings without a 

doubt – and Eduardo told him that guanacos 

always came to the same place to defecate,


came from a great way off – it was a natural 

law among them – but here, in this ancestral 

heap (so useful as fuel) nothing whatsoever 

had been deposited for months: the whole 

surface and the periphery were old, worn, and 

perfectly dry. 

This subversion of all that was right, and the 

shame of promising birds and beasts that did 

not appear, made Eduardo as nearly morose 

as his cheerful, sanguine nature would allow, 

and for part of the afternoon they rode in silence. 

During this long stretch, when the faint 

track rose steadily through broken rocky country 

towards a far high rounded crest, the train 

moved on with barely a sound. The Indians, 

whose high-arched noses and large dark eyes 

made them look quite like their llamas, talked 

little, and that in low voices: during all this 

time Stephen had not been able to establish 

human relations with a single one of them,


any more than he had with their animals, and 

this in spite of the fact that they were together 

day and night, since Eduardo kept to remote 

trails far from all towns and frequented roads, 

the llamas carrying everything needed for their 

journey. It is true that they had seen two very 

long caravans carrying ore down from the isolated 

mines right up just under the snow-line, 

but these only accentuated their loneliness, 

not unlike that of a ship in mid-ocean. One 

slight consolation was that by now only a few 

of the more froward llamas spat at him. Up 

and up; up and up; with his eyes fixed, unseeing, 

on the gravelly soil and thin grass of the 

track as it flowed steadily beneath his larboard 

stirrup (a great hollowed block of wood) 

Stephen's mind floated off ten thousand miles 

to Diana and Brigit. How did they do? Was it 

right in a man to marry and then to sail off to 

the far side of the world for years on end?


An Aymara Indian of a superior kind with a 

red worsted cap struck him sharply on the 

knee, speaking in a severe, disapproving tone 

and pointing. 'Don Esteban,' called Eduardo 

again from some little way ahead, 'we are almost 

on the edge of the puna. If you would 

like to dismount I believe I could really show 

you something this time.' 

Stephen looked up. Immediately ahead was 

a low red cliff and on its top the rounded crest 

towards which they had been travelling so 

long, now suddenly quite close. They must 

have mounted another two or three thousand 

feet, he reflected, taking notice of the still 

thinner air, the sharper cold. 'We will join 

them round the next bend,' said Eduardo, 

leading him towards a shaley path up the cliff 

while the llamas carried on along the trail, 

quite broad and distinct at this point. 

'This was no doubt a mine,' observed Edu-


ardo, pointing to a tunnel and a spoil-heap. 

'Or an attempt at a mine.' Stephen nodded. 

They had passed no mountain, however bare, 

remote, waterless and inaccessible, without 

the mark of men having been there, searching 

for gold, silver, copper, cinnabar or even tin. 

He said nothing. His heart was already beating 

so as to fill his bosom, leaving no room 

for breath. He reached the top, but only just, 

and stood there controlling or trying to control 

his violent gasps while Eduardo named the 

great shining snowy peaks that soared on either 

hand and in front, all rising like islands 

from an orange belt of cloud, one behind the 

other, brilliant in the cold transparent air. 

'Now,' he said, turning to Stephen, 'I believe I 

shall take your breath away.' 

Stephen gave a weak, mechanical smile and 

followed him carefully over the tufts of coarse 

yellow grass. Trees had been left behind long,


long ago, and here there was not even a hint 

of a bush, not even of a prostrate bush, only 

the near-sterility of ichu grass stretching away 

and away for ever over this high stark plateau. 

The ground looked flat but in fact it rose and 

fell, and pausing by a rocky outcrop Eduardo 

gave Stephen a significant, triumphant look. 

Stephen, half blind by now, followed his gaze 

down the slope and to his utter amazement he 

saw a scattered grove of what for a moment 

he took to be thick-stemmed palm-trees about 

fifteen feet high: but some of them had a 

great solid spike rising as much again above 

the palm-like crown. 

He ran unsteadily to the nearest. The leaves 

were like those of an agave, fierce-pointed 

and with hooked thorns all along their sides: 

the great spike was an ordered mass of closepacked 

flowers, pale yellow, thousands and 

thousands of them. 'Mother of God,' he said.


And after a while, 'It is a bromeliad.' 

'Yes, sir,' said Eduardo, delighted, proprietorial. 

'We call it a puya.' 

'Ruiz did not know it. Nowhere is it described, 

still less figured in the Flora Peruvianae et 

Chilensis. What would Linnaeus have made of 

such a plant? Oh, oh!' he cried, for there, as 

incongruous in this severity as the bromeliad, 

flew or rather darted minute green hummingbirds, 

hovering at an open flower, sipping its 

honey, flashing on to the next, taking no notice 

of him whatsoever. 

A week later and two thousand feet higher 

Stephen and Eduardo walked out across the 

flank of a quiescent volcano at a fine brisk 

pace: on the left hand a chaos of rocks, some 

enormous; on the right a vast sweep of volcanic 

ash, old settled ash, now just blushing 

green from a recent shower. They were carry-


ing their guns, for in the puna beyond this 

chaos there was a possibility of Eduardo's partridges; 

but their main purpose was to contemplate 

a lofty rock-face with an inaccessible 

ledge upon which the condor had nested in 

the past and might well be nesting now. 

They threaded the chaos, and although the 

north-facing boulders were coated with old ice 

they found several interesting plants among 

them as well as some droppings that Eduardo 

pointed out as being those of a vicuña. 

'How do they differ from those of a guanaco?' 

asked Stephen. 

'Apart from the fact that they lie separately 

rather than in a family heap, I should find it 

difficult to say,' replied Eduardo. 

'But if you were to see the two side by side 

you would distinguish them at once. This is 

low for a vicuña, however; he must have come


down for the fresh green on the other side.' 

'Perhaps we may get a shot at him,' said 

Stephen. 'You yourself said that you were tired 

of fried guinea-pig and ham.' 

'So I did,' said Eduardo, and then, hesitantly, 

'But, dear don Esteban, it would grieve me if 

you were to kill him. The Incas have always 

protected the vicuña and even the Spaniards 

leave him alone in general. My followers 

would take it very ill.' 

'Sure, he is safe from me. Yet my best poncho 

is made from vicuña's wool.' 

'Certainly. They are killed from time to time, 

and by certain people... There is our condor.' 

There he was indeed, black in a dark blue 

sky, wheeling towards his still-distant cliff. They 

watched him out of sight. Stephen did not return 

to the vicuña: Eduardo was embarrassed 

and there was obviously some question of the


old ways here. He and his followers were no 

doubt practising Catholics, but this did not 

prevent them from dipping one finger in their 

cup and holding it up to thank the sun before 

drinking, as their ancestors had done time out 

of mind; and there were other ceremonies of 

the same nature. 'As you know,' said Eduardo, 

'the chick cannot fly until his second year; so if 

he is there, and if the light is what I could 

wish, we may see him peering over the edge.' 

'Could we not climb up and look down on 

him?' 

'Heavens, no,' cried Eduardo. 'We should 

never get down before sunset; and it is terrible 

to be caught by night on the puna. Do but 

think of the terrible evening winds, the terrible 

morning winds, and the wicked cold – nothing 

to eat, nothing to drink, no shelter at all.' 

Stephen was thinking of these things as they


walked across an accidented stretch of country 

when, rounding a tumble of rock, they heard 

the squealing neigh of a guanaco. They 

stopped short, and there on the left hand 

stood the guanaco they had heard, while still 

farther to the left a string of others fled at a 

great pace, vanishing down the slope. 

The guanaco neighed again, louder, still 

more shrill, stamped the tall spiky ichu grass 

with his front feet and began rearing and waving 

his head in a great passion, never yielding 

a foot as they approached. 

'He is challenging you,' said Eduardo. 'He 

has been fighting – look at the blood on his 

sides. He may attack you presently. You could 

not ask for a better shot; nor a better supper.' 

'But I must not shoot him?' 

'Why, don Esteban,' cried Eduardo, 'how can 

you speak so? He is no vicuña – he is much


too big for a vicuña, and the wrong colour – 

he is a guanaco, and a perfectly fair quarry for 

you.' 

Stephen's piece had one barrel loaded with 

shot, the other with ball: he knelt, which enraged 

the guanaco, took careful aim, and 

fired. The animal, struck in the heart, gave a 

great bound and disappeared, apparently collapsing 

in the long grass. 

'The first day we eat steaks, minced very fine,' 

said Eduardo as they hurried up the slope. 

'The next day, in the sun, his shoulders grow 

quite tender.' Eduardo could be as cheerful as 

any European, but it was clearly part of his 

ancestral code to show no adverse emotion: a 

Stoic calm. Yet now his look of eager expectation 

changed to one of plain blank undisguised 

dismay. The guanaco had in fact been 

capering on the edge of a chasm and its convulsive 

leap had carried it over.


Two hundred feet below them he lay, and the 

cliff dropped sheer. They pondered, searching 

in vain for any way down; they measured the 

declining sun, the shadows rising below them; 

unwillingly they turned, and as they turned first 

the male condor and then his mate began 

their first wheeling sweeps high overhead. 

Another day, on the high puna yet again, 

coming back from a small alpine lake, the 

source of a stream that eventually flowed into 

the Amazon and so on to the Atlantic (though 

from here on clear mornings they could make 

out the gleam of the South Sea), a lake on 

whose frozen bank Eduardo had shown 

Stephen that handsome goose the huachua 

with a white body and dark green wings, they 

paused in still another group of puyas, some 

of them growing among rocks so conveniently 

placed that Stephen was able to gather seed 

from the lower flower. It was late, but for once


the evening was as calm as the day, and the 

llama-train was clearly in sight on the trail below. 

'Let us walk down wide,' said Eduardo, looking 

to his flint. 'I still have hopes.' 

'Very well,' said Stephen, and they went down 

the slope abreast, twenty yards apart. When 

they were a stone's throw from the trail a fairsized 

bird sprang from a tuft with a whirr of 

wings. It was clearly Eduardo's bird and he 

fired, hitting it so hard that it bounced again. 

'There,' he cried, as happy as a boy, 'here is 

my partridge at last: or at least what the Spaniards 

call a partridge.' 

'A very handsome bird, too, so it is,' said 

Stephen, turning it over and over. 'And to be 

sure there is a superficial resemblance to a 

partirdge: though I doubt it is a gallinaceous 

bird at all.'


'So do I. We call it and its cousin tuya.' 

'I believe it is one of Latham's tinamous.' 

'I am sure you are right. A very curious thing 

about the tuya is that the cock-bird broods the 

eggs, sometimes the eggs of several hens, like 

the rhea. Possibly there is some connexion.' 

'Sure the bill is not unlike... But you will never 

tell me you have rheas at this exorbitant 

height?' 

'We certainly have, and higher still. Not the 

blundering great rheas of the pampas, but fine 

grey birds that stand no more than four feet 

high and run like the wind. God willing I shall 

bring you in sight of some on the altiplano, 

soon after we leave the monastery.' 

'How good and kind you are, dear Eduardo. 

I look forward to it with the keenest anticipation,' 

said Stephen; and having felt the bird's 

skeleton under its plump breast, 'I fairly long


to dissect him.' 

'That would mean fried guinea-pig again,' 

observed Eduardo. 

'Not if we confine our attention to his bones,' 

said Stephen. 'A bird, very gently seethed for 

some hours, will always leave his bones in the 

pot. You will say that his flesh is not that of the 

same bird roasted, which is very true; but how 

much better, even so, than our eternal guineapig.' 

The monastery of which Eduardo had spoken 

was five days journey to the south-east, but the 

prospect of the altiplano rheas, the salt lakes 

with their different kinds of flamingo, and the 

unending deserts of pure white salt itself lent 

Stephen Maturin wings and, helped by unnaturally 

kind weather, they reached the high 

lonely mission in four although they were 

loaded with the spoils of Lake Titicaca – the


skins of two flightless grebes, two different 

species of ibis, a crested duck and some rails, 

together with plants and insects. 

Eduardo and his train appeared well after 

what little dusk there was in such a latitude 

and at such a height. They had to hammer on 

the outward gate and bawl a great while before 

it opened; and when at last they were 

admitted, worried and discontented looks received 

them. The building had been a mission 

belonging to the Society of Jesus until that order 

was suppressed; now it was inhabited by 

Capuchins, and the friars, though no doubt 

good-hearted, pious men, lacked both the 

learning and the dissimulation often attributed 

to the Jesuits. 'We did not expect you until tomorrow,' 

said the Prior. 'Today is Wednesday, 

not Thursday,' said the Sub-Prior. 'There is 

nothing to eat,' said a friar in the dim background. 

'Juan Morales was to bring up a


roasted pig tomorrow, and several hens – why 

did you not send to say you were coming today?' 

'If you had sent yesterday morning we 

could have asked Black López to tell Juan to 

bring the hog up today.' 'Black López was going 

down in any case.' After a silence the 

Brother Porter said, 'Well, there may be a few 

guinea-pigs left in the scriptorium.' 'Run, 

Brother Jaime,' cried the Prior. 'Let us lift up 

our hearts. And at least there is always some 

wine.' 

'There is always some wine,' cried the 

Prior, my dear,' wrote Stephen, 'and I 

cannot tell you how well it went down. 

Nor can I tell you how much I look forward 

to the next few days, when my 

amiable companion promises me the 

wonders of the altiplano, perhaps even 

of the edge of the Atacama, where rain


falls but once in a hundred years. He 

has already shown me little bright green 

parakeets in the desolation of bare rock 

at fifteen thousand feet, mountain viscachas, 

fat creatures like rabbits with a 

squirrel's tail that live among the boulders, 

piping and whistling cheerfully, 

and many other delights in those prodigious 

solitudes with snowy peaks on 

every hand, some of them volcanoes 

that glow red by night; and he promises 

more to come, for extreme conditions 

beget extremities in every form of life. I 

could however wish that one of the extremities 

was not the guinea-pig or 

cavy. He is neither beautiful nor intelligent, 

and he is the most indifferent eating 

imaginable – barely edible at all, 

indeed, after the first half dozen braces. 

Unhappily he is readily domesticated;


he dries, smokes or salts easily; and he 

can be carried for ever in this dry, dry 

cold air – a cold air in which the native 

potato too can be and alas is dried, frozen, 

dried again and so packed up. I 

have tried to make this dish a little more 

palatable by adding mushrooms, our 

ordinary European mushrooms, Agaricus 

campestris, which to my perfect stupefaction 

I found growing here in alpine 

meadows: but my dear companion told 

me I should certainly drop down dead, 

his followers too assured me and one 

another that I should swell, then drop 

down dead; and it angered them so 

when I survived a week that Eduardo 

had to beg me to stop – I might bring 

misfortune upon the whole company. 

They look upon me as an unwholesome 

being: and I must admit that I cannot


congratulate them upon their looks either. 

At this height, in this cold, and with 

the incessant effort, their faces grow 

blue, a dull and somewhat uninviting 

leaden blue.' 

He reflected upon these Indians and upon 

Eduardo for a while, dipped his pen again 

and wrote, 

'Will I tell you two things now before I 

forget them? The first is that there are 

no ill smells up here, no smells at all. 

The second–' 

He dipped his pen again, but now the ink 

had frozen, which did not surprise him; and 

gathering his vicuña poncho round his meagre 

form he walked off to his bed, where,


when a certain slight degree of warmth had 

gathered round him, he lay thinking of Eduardo 

and their conversations all that afternoon 

as they climbed steadily from La Guayra. 

Eduardo had given him a detailed account of 

Pachacutic Inca, the first great conqueror, and 

of his family down to Huayna Capac, the 

Great Inca, to Atahualpa, strangled by Pizarro, 

and the Inca Manco, Eduardo's ancestor, 

and of the many still-existing collateral 

families descending from Huayna Capac. It 

did not surprise Stephen to hear of bitter enmity 

between cousins, nor of feuds lasting 

from the earliest times to the present, nor indeed 

of brother murdering brother – there 

were after all well-established precedents – 

but it did surprise him after a while to find that 

the general drift of his friend's conversation 

seemed more and more to be in the direction 

of outside support for one particular branch of


the royal line, so that it might neutralize the 

other Quechua clans and unite a sufficient 

force of Indians and well-wishers to liberate at 

least Cuzco, their ancestral home. It surprised 

him because he would have sworn that a man 

of Eduardo's intelligence must have seen the 

impossibility of such a scheme – the unbelievable 

number of totally conflicting interests – 

the extreme unlikelihood of reconciliation between 

the hostile groups – the wretched outcome 

of Tupac Amaru's rising not long since, 

drowned in blood by the Spaniards with the 

help of other Indians, some of the royal blood. 

He concealed his surprise, but he let the 

words flow past his ears, deliberately forgetting 

to record the genealogies, the names of 

those likely to support the cause, and of those 

already committed. 

Yet as he lay there unsleeping in the cold his 

perversely retentive memory rehearsed these


lists, and he was still with the descendants of 

Huascar Inca when a barefoot friar came in 

with a charcoal brazier and asked him 

whether he was awake, because if he was, the 

Prior thought he might like to join them in a 

novena addressed to Saint Isidore of Seville, 

begging for his intercession in favour of all 

travellers. 

Returning to his now warmer room from this 

exercise Stephen fell into a dreaming sleep: 

Diana, sentenced to death for some unquestioned 

murder, stood before the judge in an 

informal court, guarded by a civil but reserved 

jaileress. She was wearing a nightgown, and 

the judge, a well-bred man obviously embarrassed 

by the situation and by his task, was 

slowly tying a hangman's knot in a fine new 

piece of white cordage. Diana's distress increased 

as the knot reached completion; she 

looked at Stephen, her eyes darkening with


terror. He could do nothing. 

Still another barefoot friar, looking casually 

into his cell, expressed some astonishment that 

Stephen should not yet have joined don Eduardo 

and his company. They were there in the 

courtyard, the pack llamas already loaded 

and the sun rising over Anacochani. 

So it was: yet the western sky was still dark 

violet at the lower rim and as he looked at it 

Stephen remembered the words he had intended 

to write to Diana before he put his letter 

to the candle: 'in this still cold air the stars 

do not twinkle, but hang there like a covey of 

planets', for there they were, clear beads of 

unwinking gold. He could not relish them 

however; his dream still oppressed him, and 

he had to force a smile when Eduardo told 

him he had reserved a piece of bread for their 

breakfast instead of dried potatoes, a piece of 

wheaten bread.


The high querulous voice of the llamas as 

they set off, the steady clop of his mule striding 

along the road, the glorious day rising 

huge overhead in a sky of immeasurable 

height, and on every hand brown mountains 

capped with white, the thin and piercing air 

growing warm as the sun climbed well above 

the peaks. 

Nobody spoke much; nor would they do so 

until the warmth and the exercise had loosened 

their powerful chests – the breath still 

came steaming from them all and all seemed 

totally absorbed by their own reflexions. Yet 

the train had not gone two miles or three before 

a long wavering Aymara howl stopped 

each man in his stride. 

It was a short stocky Indian just coming into 

sight behind them, rounding a curve in the 

mountain side. He was a great way off, but in 

this brilliant clarity Eduardo at once said 'Qui-


pus', on either side of him his followers murmured 

'Quipus'. 

'I am sure you have often seen quipus, don 

Esteban?' said Eduardo. 

'Never in life, my dear,' replied Stephen. 

'You will see them presently,' said Eduardo, 

and they watched the far small man as he 

came running steadily along the track, his 

coloured staff rising and falling. 'They are 

knotted cords and thin strips of cloth: our kind 

of writing, concise, ingenious, secret. I am a 

sinful creature, but on no more than a few 

inches I can record all I must remember at 

confession; and only I can read it, since the 

first knot gives the clue to all the rest.' 

The messenger came running along the line; 

his face was blue, but his breath was even, 

unhurried. He kissed Eduardo's knee, unwound 

the coloured cords and strips from his


staff and handed them up. The train moved 

on; Stephen gathered his reins. 'No,' said 

Eduardo. 'Pray watch. You will see me read 

them as quick as a clearly-written letter.' 

This he did, but as he read his expression 

changed. His pleasant ingenuous young face 

closed and at the end he said, 'I beg your 

pardon, don Esteban: I had thought it was just 

my agent in Cuzco asking whether he might 

send a draft of llamas to Potosi, this being the 

runner who usually brings his messages'. But 

now it is quite another matter. We must go no 

farther south. Gayongos has a ship for Valparaiso 

that will touch at Arica. We must cut 

across by the Huechopillan... it is a high pass, 

don Esteban, but you will not mind a high 

pass. I am very sorry I must forego the pleasure 

of showing you the rheas of the altiplano 

this time and the great wastes of salt; but not 

far from the Huechopillan there is a lake on


which I can almost promise you some most 

uncommon ducks and geese: gulls too and 

rails. Forgive me.' He spurred along the track, 

and as Stephen slowly followed he heard him 

giving orders that sent three quarters of the 

train back along the road, such as it was. 

Stephen was intimately convinced that the 

quipus had brought news of some hostile 

cousins waiting for Eduardo in the context of 

that movement for liberation he had touched 

upon the day before as well as word of 

Gayongos' ship, which might more sensibly 

have put in a little farther south, in the realm 

of Chile. For Arica, as both he and Eduardo 

knew, was still in the government of Peru: yet 

pointing out the obvious could only cause distress, 

fruitless argument, bad blood. 

The greater part of the returning band flowed 

round him as he sat there on his mule, passing 

silently, with apparent indifference or at


the most a certain veiled disapproval. Riding 

on to join those who remained he saw Eduardo's 

face, impassive and firmly in command, 

though his eyes sometimes wandered towards 

Stephen with some hint of anxious questioning. 

Stephen still said nothing, yet he did observe 

that now their company was made up of 

the abler looking (and indeed more amiable) 

men leading the stronger beasts, and they with 

larger packs. On, and within half an hour 

their quiet rhythm had returned. 

At noon they were on a broad stony platform, 

bare flat rock at the convergence of three 

mountain spurs, hot in the sun; and here their 

track could no longer be seen at all. Yet neither 

Eduardo nor his men seemed in any way 

concerned; they marched steadily across and 

turned right-handed where the westernmost 

spur ran down to the little plain, travelling 

steadily on through a sheltered and relatively


fertile stretch of country, green here and there 

with tola bushes and shaggy with coarse yellow 

grass. 

The going was easier, much clearer in direction 

and smoother by far. 'We have struck into 

one of the Inca post-roads,' said Eduardo, 

breaking the silence. 'In a little while, where 

there is marshy ground by day, it is paved. My 

ancestors may not have known the wheel, but 

they did know how to make roads. Beyond the 

marshy piece, where we may put up some 

wildfowl, there is a great tumble of boulders 

from an earthquake so long ago that they are 

covered with lichen, and not only lichen but a 

very curious woody fungus that I believe you 

may not have seen. It is called yaretta, and it 

grows at this height from here to the westward; 

and together with guanaco dung the 

heads make excellent firing. The rock-fall 

abounds with viscachas, and if we take our


guns we may be spared guinea-pig for a great 

while: viscachas are capital eating. But Doctor, 

I am afraid you are sad. I am so sorry to 

have disappointed you of our altiplano rheas.' 

'I am not at all disappointed, friend. I have 

seen a little flock of white-winged finches and 

a bird I took to be a mountain caracara.' 

Eduardo was unconvinced. He looked into 

Stephen's face and said, 'Still, if only this 

weather holds' – glancing anxiously at the 

pure sky overhead – 'we should reach the pass 

in three days, and we will surely find wonders 

on my lake.' 

On the morning of the second day the pass 

was clearly to be seen, a little above the snowline 

between two matching peaks that soared 

another five thousand feet, brilliant white in 

the almost horizontal sun.


'There is the post-house,' said Eduardo, 

pointing his glass, 'just under the snow and a 

little to the right. It was built by Huayna Capac, 

and it is as strong as ever. The pass is 

high, as you see, but on the far side there is 

an easy road, downhill all the way to one of 

my brother's silver-mines and a village where 

they grow the best potatoes in Peru as well as 

corn and barley, and they breed excellent llamas 

– these animals all came from there, and 

that is one of the reasons that they step out so 

well. It is true that after that we have to cross a 

chasm, with the Uribu flowing far below, but 

there is a hanging bridge in quite good repair, 

and you do not dislike heights that fill weak 

minds with horror. Sailors pay no attention to 

heights – a circumnavigator is inured to prodigious 

heights. What have you found, don 

Esteban?' 

'A curious beetle.'


'Very curious indeed. One day I shall really 

set myself to the study of beetles. My lake too 

is on the far side. It seems to me that we 

should reach the post-house in plenty of time 

for the men to settle in and for you and me to 

go on to my lake. At this time of year it will not 

even skim over with ice until well after sunset, 

and we may find ducks and geese by the hundred. 

We will take Molina, the best llama, to 

carry what we shoot.' 

'If you are as mistaken about the birds as you 

are about my head for heights, Molina will 

have no great burden to carry, at all,' reflected 

Stephen, who had often heard, each time with 

deeper dismay, of the spidery Inca bridges 

upon which intrepid Indians crossed torrents 

raging a thousand feet below them, even 

hauling immobilized animals over by means of 

a primitive windlass, the whole construction 

swaying wildly to and fro as even a single


traveller reached the middle, the first false step 

being the last. 

'How long does it take to fall a thousand 

feet?' he asked himself, and as the troop set 

out he tried to make the calculation; but his 

arithmetical powers were and always had 

been weak. 'Long enough to make an act of 

contrition, at all events,' he said, abandoning 

the answer of seven hours and odd seconds 

as absurd. 

On and on: up and up. This had been the 

pattern for a great while, but now the up and 

up was growing far more pronounced ; now it 

was often a question of leading his mule 

again; and now he had to concentrate his 

mind on keeping up wherever the road grew 

steep. His breath was coming short; his heart 

beat a hundred and twenty strokes a minute; 

his eyesight wavered.


'You are in a brown study, I find,' said Eduardo, 

whose spirits had revived with the altitude. 

'I was contemplating on the physiology of 

animals that live in a rarefied atmosphere,' 

said Stephen. 'Surely the exact dissection of a 

vicuña would show some very remarkable adaptations?' 

'There can be no doubt of it,' replied Eduardo. 

'And at present we too mean to adapt 

our own persons for the last stretch with a 

draught of maté. Do you choose to dismount?' 

Stephen did so, very carefully avoiding the 

least hint of unsteadiness. He could scarcely 

see, but he was most unwilling to show any 

sign of the mountain-sickness that had certainly 

come upon him. When his head cleared 

from the effort of swinging out of the saddle 

he looked up and saw to his relief that they


were now quite near the snow-line, above sixteen 

thousand feet. He had never been so 

high, and he had every right to be mountainsick: 

this was no discreditable weakness. 

Already smoke was rising from the guanaco 

dung, the woody fungus heads and a few of 

those bushes that burned green; and presently 

the gourds of maté were passing round. 

Stephen drew in the hot cheering gusts 

through his silver tube, ate a dried peach from 

Chile, and then like all the rest he drew out his 

pouch of coca-leaves, preparing a moderate 

ball spread with quinoa ash, chewed it slightly 

to start the flow and then eased it into his 

cheek. The familiar tingling began almost at 

once, followed by the beginning of that curious 

numbness which had so startled him many 

years ago. 

Mountain-sickness faded, anxiety with it; 

strength returned. He gazed at the climbing


road, the last stretch, three steep traverses zigzagging 

up to the post-house, into the snow 

and over the pass. It would be walking every 

step of the way. He did not mind at all. 

'Will you not ride, don Esteban?' asked Eduardo, 

holding the stirrup for him. 

'No, sir,' said Stephen. 'The animal is extremely 

tired – look at his hanging lip, God be 

with him – whereas I am now quite recovered, 

a sprightly popinjay.' 

A little less sprightly by the time they reached 

the massive post-house, built, like some of 

those sections of the road cut deep into the 

mountainside, of vast rocks so exactly shaped 

that they outstripped all reasonable conjecture, 

a little less sprightly, but perfectly human. 

He took the liveliest interest in the yaretta fungus 

growing on these rocks and on the inner 

walls, and Eduardo said to him, 'How glad I


am to see you so brisk. Although we reached 

here in such good time I was afraid you might 

be too tired to see my lake. Do you think that 

after say an hour's rest you would like to go? 

There is some cloud in the east, and as you 

know winds sometimes get up in the evening; 

but an hour's rest would still leave us time.' 

'Dear Eduardo,' said Stephen, 'the earlier we 

go the more we shall see. I fairly dote on alpine 

lakes, and this one as I recall has a fine 

fringe of reeds.' 

It had indeed a fine fringe of reeds, a very 

fine deep fringe, unique in Stephen Maturin's 

extensive experience of reeds in that they grew 

not out of glutinous mud but from a layer of 

broken stones brought down by some not far 

distant combination of earthquake and flood 

from one of the nearby glaciers. This allowed 

them to walk out dryfoot with their guns and 

spyglasses, leaving Molina on a long tether


among the clumps of spiny ichu grass. 

When first they had seen it from above, at 

some distance, the lake was clearly full of 

wildfowl – rafts of duck, geese at the far end 

where a stream from the northern glacier 

came in, and gulls over all – but by the time 

they had made their way through to a sheltered 

point near the open water that allowed 

them a clear view although they remained unseen, 

they found that there were also remarkable 

numbers of rails, waders and the smaller 

herons. 

'What wealth!' they cried, and began a first 

eager census of genera at least before the 

identification or attempted identification of 

species. Presently they grew calmer, leaving 

the fine-work until they could obtain specimens, 

and they sat at their ease, gazing over 

the water at a distant crowd of flamingoes, 

gabbling steadily in their goose-like manner.


A straggling line of newcomers, pale pink, 

scarlet and black in the declining sun, passed 

over to join the rest; and Stephen, watching 

them as they crossed from left to right, observed, 

'For me flamingoes belong essentially 

to the Mediterranean lagoons, by definition at 

the level of the sea; and to find them up here, 

in an air so thin it is a wonder that their wings 

can bear them, gives the whole landscape 

something of the qualities of a dream. It is true 

that their voices are slightly different and that 

their plumage has a deeper red, but that if 

anything strengthens the impression, like losing 

one's way in a familiar town – a sense of...' 

He broke off as a little band of teal came racing 

across well within range and both men 

cocked their fowling-pieces. 

Eduardo was poised, but seeing Stephen 

lower his gun he did not fire. 'How absurd,' 

said Stephen, 'I quite forgot to ask you how


you manage without a dog. We could not 

have brought them down on land, and no 

man would ever wade far less swim for all love 

in that cruel bitter cold wetness for anything 

short of a two-headed phoenix.' 

'No,' said Eduardo. 'What we cannot bring 

down on the shore, we leave where they fall. 

The lake freezes hard by night and we pick 

them up in the morning. But it is strange that 

you should have spoken of a dream – waking 

dream. I have the same feeling, though not at 

all for the same clear reason. There is something 

strange here. The birds are not settled. 

As you see, they are perpetually moving, the 

groups breaking up. And there is too much 

noise. They are uneasy. So is Molina: I have 

heard him three times now. There is something 

unnatural. God send there may not be 

an earthquake.' 

'Amen.'


After a long pause Eduardo said, 'I do not 

believe I shall kill anything this evening, don 

Esteban... What do you say to sitting here and 

counting and naming as well as we can until 

the sun is half an hour from Taraluga over 

there – I have a quipu in my pocket to record 

them – and then going back across the 

Huechopillan to the post-house, where you 

can write them down at your leisure?' 

'With all my heart,' said Maturin. It had become 

increasingly evident to him that there 

was a whole series of pieties active in Eduardo's 

breast which had nothing to do with 

those of Christianity as it was ordinarily understood. 

Furthermore he was much attached to 

the young man; and he had not seen him so 

moved before, even when he received the 

message from Cuzco. 

They sat on, noting the passing birds, watching 

those farther off with their telescopes,


comparing observations; and they were talking 

about the remarkable sense of the ominous 

or of impending change in animals – 

earthquake, eruption, eclipse (even lunar 

eclipses in certain bats) – when a flock of huachua 

geese flew straight at them at an extraordinary 

speed, passing just over their 

heads and with so great a rush of wings that 

for a moment their words were lost. The geese 

all wheeled together, returned at the same 

height and speed, rose and then pitched on 

the water, tearing the surface and throwing it 

wide: they sat in a tight-packed group, their 

heads stretched up; and high over them the 

lake gulls turned, screaming, screaming. 

Another minute passed and a prodigious 

noise between a great thunder-clap and a 

broadside made both men start up, part the 

tall reeds and look behind them. They saw the 

snow of the two peaks on either side of the


pass streaming out to leeward, streamers a 

mile long and more: then peaks and the pass 

itself vanished in a white turmoil. 

'It may not last,' cried Eduardo, catching up 

his gun. Stephen followed him as he went fast 

through the reeds to the place where they had 

left the llama. And indeed for some minutes it 

seemed that this one clap might be the end; 

but while Eduardo was fastening their belongings 

to the llama's pack-saddle, Stephen 

looked at the water. There was scarcely a 

creature left on it now, and all along the edge 

birds were pushing in among the reeds. 

Moving at that quick familiar short-paced Indian 

trot Eduardo and the llama set off over 

the powdering of snow for the true snowline 

and the pass. There was still enough day and 

enough light to cross it, going even at a moderate 

pace.


A second thunder-clap, a triple roar several 

times repeated, and first the wind and then the 

snow engulfed them. Stephen, who weighed 

no great matter, was thrust first forward, then 

violently back, then plucked bodily up and 

flung against a rock. For a while he could see 

nothing, and crouched there shielding his face 

so that he should not breathe the flying powdered 

snow. Eduardo, who like the llama had 

thrown himself down at the first blast, found 

him, passed the tether round his waist and 

told him to hold on and keep moving for the 

love of God – Eduardo knew the path perfectly 

well – they would reach the snow-line 

and move on bent low – much easier up there 

– no hard falling – and the top of the pass 

would be blown clear. 

But it was not. When at last they had beaten 

their slow, gasping way up through the roaring, 

uneven wind in the increasing darkness


they found that hitherto they had been in the 

relatively sheltered lee of the topmost ridge 

and that the pass itself received not only the 

full force of the blast but of that blast concentrated 

and magnified by the two converging 

sides of rock. The space between was a racing 

downward torrent of air and snow that now 

partook more and more of the cutting icy crust 

from the snowfields far to windward. It was 

quite impassable. The sun had vanished in a 

white blur at some forgotten or unnoticed 

point but by the grace of God a four-day 

moon gleaming at odd moments through 

breaks in the clouds of flying snow enabled 

Eduardo to reach a cleft in the rock-face. It 

just allowed them to shelter from the direct 

buffeting of the wind if not from its shattering 

noise, and to some degree from the rapidly 

increasing and mortal cold. 

It was a triangular cleft, the outer part filled


with powdered snow. Eduardo kicked it into 

the mainstream, where it vanished instantly, 

thrust Stephen right into the sharp apex, followed 

him, dragging the llama into the opening 

where it lay on the remaining snow, and 

squatted between the two. The llama tried to 

heave itself farther in, but this could not be: 

after a struggle Eduardo managed to shackle 

one bent knee and the poor beast gave up, 

lowering its long neck across them, with its 

head on Stephen's knee. 

Gradually, as they recovered from the immense 

exertion of the last hundred yards or 

so, and as their ears grew more accustomed 

to the wind's countless voices, all different, all 

enormously loud and oppressive in this shrieking 

pass, they exchanged a few words. Eduardo 

begged pardon for leading don Esteban 

into this – he should have known – there were 

signs – Tepee had told him it was a haunted,


unlucky day – but these winds died with the 

midnight stars or at least with the rising sun. 

Would the Doctor like a ball of coca-leaves? 

Stephen had been so very near death from a 

racing heart, an inability to breathe at such a 

height and physical exhaustion that he had 

almost forgotten his pouch; and at this point 

he did not possess the bodily strength or the 

spiritual resolution to grope for it under his 

clothes. He accepted gratefully, fumbling 

across the llama's neck for the proffered quid. 

It had not been in his cheek five minutes before 

the extremity, the almost mortal extremity 

of fatigue died away. In ten minutes he was 

perfectly capable of reaching his own supply 

of leaves and ash, and of rearranging himself 

with what small degree of physical comfort the 

space allowed. He also felt a certain grateful 

warmth from the llama's head; but quite apart 

from that, mental comfort and a sense of di-


vorce from time and immediate contingencies 

were already settling in his mind. 

They talked a little, or rather shouted, about 

the desirability of a thick drift of snow across 

the entrance. Yet the steadily increasing cold 

made the effort of shouting too great and 

each relapsed into a meditative silence, carefully 

spreading what clothes they had over the 

whole of their persons, particularly ears, 

noses, fingers. What passed for time or at 

least a kind of duration no doubt went on. 

Sleep in these circumstances seemed wholly 

out of the question, even if it had not been for 

the effect of coca-leaves, stronger by far than 

any coffee known to man, above all in the 

present heavy and steadily repeated doses. 

Yet at some remote given point Stephen's 

waking mind distinctly perceived the minute 

voice of the watch deep in his bosom striking 

five and then the half. 'Can this be?' he asked,


and feeling deep within his bosom he pressed 

the repeating knob. Five said the watch again, 

and then the shriller half: at the same moment 

he realized that the wind had stopped; that the 

llama's head and neck were cold, the creature 

already stiff; that Eduardo was breathing 

deep; that his own leg, no longer covered by 

the poncho these many hours, had no sensibility 

whatsoever; and that the mouth of the 

cleft, now almost entirely closed by a great 

deal of fresh snow, had a line of light at the 

top. 

'Eduardo,' he called, when he had digested 

all these things and arranged them in order, 

'Eduardo, God and Mary be with you: it is 

dawn, and the cold is less.' 

Eduardo woke at once and with a clearer 

mind by far. He blessed God, gathered himself, 

writhed round the dead llama, pushed the 

loose-packed snow away and called back,


'The pass is now swept quite clear, and there is 

Tupec coming down, with two other men.' He 

pulled the poor beast away. Light came flooding 

in and Stephen looked at his morbid leg. 

'Eduardo, my dear,' he said hesitantly, after a 

careful examination, 'I grieve to tell you that 

my leg is deeply frostbitten. If I am fortunate I 

may lose no more than some toes; but even in 

that case I cannot do more than creep. Pray 

pass me a handful of snow.' 

As he chafed the pallid leg and the ominously 

blueing foot with snow Eduardo 

agreed. 'But,' he said, 'pray do not take it to 

heart. Many of us have lost toes on the puna 

without great harm; and as for your reaching 

Arica, why, never concern yourself at all. You 

shall have a Peruvian chair. I shall send down 

to the village and you will travel like Pachacutic 

Inca himself, cross the bridge, the hills and 

the valleys in a Peruvian chair.'


TEN 

At seven bells in the forenoon watch the Surprise, 

under topsails alone, heaved to: the officers 

began to assemble on the quarterdeck, 

the midshipmen on the gangway, all carrying 

their quadrants or sextants, for the sun was 

approaching the meridian, and they were to 

take his altitude at the moment he crossed it, 

thereby finding just how far south of the equator 

they were at noon. To the landsman, to the 

mere superficial observer, this might have 

seemed a work of supererogation, since clear 

on her larboard bow rose the headland of 

Punta Angeles, the western extremity of Valparaiso 

bay, whose position had been laid down


with the utmost accuracy time out of mind, 

while in the brilliantly clear air miles of the 

great Cordillera could be seen, the peak of 

Aconcagua a perfect compass-bearing to the 

north-east; but as far as Jack Aubrey was concerned 

this was neither here nor there. He 

liked to run a man-of-war as men-of-war had 

always been run, with the ship's day beginning 

at noon; and this was a particularly important 

day, the last of the month and the first on 

which he could hope to find Stephen Maturin 

in Valparaiso. He therefore wished nothing to 

be done that might break the established pattern 

or bring ill-luck. It was true that a few 

years ago some wild enthusiast, a Whiggish 

civilian no doubt, had decreed that day 

should start at midnight; but Jack, though a 

scientific, forward-looking officer, agreed with 

many of his fellow-captains in giving this foolish 

innovation no countenance whatsoever:


besides, it had taken him years to persuade 

Stephen that nautical days really did start at 

noon, and he did not want his imperfect conviction 

to be shaken in any way at all. Then 

again, once this last day of the month had in 

fact begun, he meant to carry out some physical 

measurements for his friend the polymath 

Alexander Humboldt, in whose penguin-filled 

cold northern current the ship was now swimming. 

Silence fore and aft: anxious peering through 

many an eyepiece. Jack brought his own sun 

down three times to the fine firm horizon, and 

on the third it was a trifle below the second, 

which had been the true altitude. He noted the 

angle, and turning he found Tom Pullings, 

who in this anomalous ship played many parts 

as well as that of first lieutenant, standing 

there bare-headed beside him. 'Noon and 

thirty-three degrees south, sir, if you please,'


said Tom. 

'Very good, Captain Pullings,' replied Jack. 

'Make it twelve.' 

Pullings turned to Norton, the mate of the 

watch, and said, 'Make it twelve,' in a strong, 

hieratic voice. Norton, with equal gravity, 

hailed the quartermaster, not three feet away, 

'Strike eight bells and turn the glass.' The four 

double strokes rang out, and with the last still 

in the air, Pullings, directing his words to the 

bosun, roared, 'Pipe to dinner.' 

The lions at the Tower of London made a 

prodigious and indeed a shocking din on being 

fed, but theirs was a kittenish mewling 

compared with that of the Surprise; besides, 

the lions were rarely provided with mess-kids 

upon which the seamen beat with such zeal, 

this being Thursday, a salt-pork day, and one 

upon which an extraordinary plum-duff was to


be served out in honour of the birthday of 

Lord Melville, the brother of Captain Aubrey's 

particular friend Heneage Dundas and First 

Lord of the Admiralty at the time of Jack's reinstatement. 

The roaring was so usual that Jack barely noticed 

it, but the ensuing quietness did strike his 

mind. The Surprise was not one of those discontented 

spit-and-polish ships in which men 

were not allowed to speak on duty, for not 

only would this have been abhorrent to Jack 

Aubrey's feelings and dead contrary to his idea 

of command ('a happy ship is your only right 

hard-fighting ship') but with such a ship's company 

it would not have answered for a moment, 

and except at times of strong activity 

there was always a steady low hum of talk on 

deck. At present the temporary silence made 

the almost deserted deck seem still more 

empty; and Jack, addressing Adams, his clerk


and factotum in the intellectual line, lowered 

his voice. 'Mr Adams,' he said, 'when we have 

taken the temperatures and the salinity, we 

might try a sounding. With the two headlands 

we have a capital triangle, and I should like to 

know what the bottom is like at this point, if 

our line can reach it. Once that is done we 

will take the ship a little farther in and you can 

carry on in the cutter, just as though you were 

calling for mail or the like. I will give you the 

addresses where the Doctor may be found, 

and if he is at either you will bring him off directly. 

But with the utmost discretion, Mr Adams. 

The utmost discretion, too, in asking the 

way. The utmost discretion is called for in this 

case: that is why I do not take her in and lie in 

the road or the port itself. Things may come to 

that or to some system of signalling; but how 

charming it would be if we could pluck him off 

the shore right away.' – lowering his voice still


farther – 'You will not repeat it, but there appears 

to be some question of a high-placed 

very furious husband – legal proceedings – 

every kind of unpleasantness, you understand 

me.' 

The quietness lasted throughout the scientific 

observations and during the time the hands 

ate their dinner and drank their grog, a time 

during which Reade laid out the coils of deepsea 

line at given intervals from the forecastle 

to the mizen chains so that the men could let 

them go in succession. He had not retired to 

the midshipmen's berth, because he had been 

invited to dine in the cabin – invited to eat a 

much better dinner than he could hope to find 

in the berth, but to eat it more than two hours 

later than his usual time; and now, by way of 

distracting his ravenous, ever-increasing hunger, 

he indulged in capers unworthy of his 

rank or age, such as thumping the deep-sea


lead against the frigate's side. The rhythmic 

noise broke in on Jack's calculations and he 

called out, 'Mr Reade. Mr Reade, there. Pray 

attend to your duty.' 

His duty materialized in the next two minutes, 

when the afternoon watch came on deck and 

those hands who had been told off for the 

sounding took up their stations, each with a 

coil of the stout waterlaid line in his hand. 

Reade walked out on the larboard cat-head 

swinging the twenty-eight pound lead in his 

one hand, watched with infinite anxiety by the 

seamen lining the side, dropped it into the water, 

calling, 'Lead's away,' and walked back 

without a stumble. From forward aft each man 

holding twenty fathoms in his hand, sang out, 

'Watch, there, watch,' as he let the last coils 

go. Each of the ten repeated the call, except 

for the last, in the mizen chains, who held the 

fag-end tight – no coils left at all – looked up


at Reade, smiled and shook his head: 'No 

bottom with this line, sir.' 

Reade crossed the quarterdeck, took off his 

hat, reported to Captain Aubrey, 'No bottom 

with this line, sir'; and seeing that Jack was no 

longer vexed with him he went on, 'Oh sir, I 

do wish you would look out over the larboard 

beam. There is as odd a craft as you can possibly 

imagine, a balsa, I think, sailing in the 

strangest way. It has been brought by the lee 

three times in the last five minutes, and the 

poor soul seems to be entangled in his sheet. 

He is a brave fellow to come on, but he has 

no more notion of handling a boat than the 

Doctor.' 

Jack glanced at the boat. He covered his 

poor eye and stared fixedly with the other before 

crying, 'Mr Norton, jump into the top with 

this glass. Look at that balsa with the purple 

sail and tell me what you see. Mr Wilkins, let


the red cutter be lowered down at once.' 

'On deck, there,' hailed Norton, his voice 

squeaking with emotion. 'On deck, sir. It is the 

Doctor – he is overboard – no, he is back 

again – I believe his tiller has come unshipped.' 

The balsa, though wildly overloaded, was by 

definition unsinkable, and they brought him 

aboard to the heartiest cheers, helped him up 

the side with so zealous a welcome that he 

would have been pitched into the waist if Jack 

had not clasped him with both hands. 'Welcome 

aboard, Doctor,' he cried, and the ship's 

company called out, 'Welcome aboard – aye, 

aye – hear him – welcome aboard – huzzay, 

huzzay!' in defiance of all good order and discipline. 

As soon as he was in the cabin, and even 

while Killick and Padeen were taking away his


wet clothes and bringing dry, even while a pot 

of coffee was being brewed, Stephen examined 

Jack Aubrey's wounds: the leg he passed 

– an ugly scar, no more – and the eye he 

gazed at without much comment, only saying 

that he would need a better light. Then, as 

they sat down to their fragrant cup, he went 

on, 'Before I ask you how the ship sails along, 

how you have done, and how all our people 

are, will I tell you why I came out to meet you 

in this precipitate and I might almost say temerarious 

manner?' 

'If you please.' 

'I had reasons for not wishing to call any official 

attention to the Surprise, but the chief 

cause for my haste was that I have some information 

that you might wish to act upon 

without the loss of a minute.' 

'Oh, indeed?' cried Jack, his good eye light-


ing with its old predatory gleam. 

'As I was leaving Peru because of the unjustified 

suspicions of a military man who misunderstood 

my examination of his wife – a 

deeply stupid but very powerful and bloodyminded 

military man–' This was an explanation 

for some of Stephen's more bizarre movements 

that both of them understood perfectly: 

it was calculated, and very well calculated, to 

satisfy the minds of the seamen, who for a 

great while had looked upon the Doctor's licentious 

capers ashore with an indulgent 

comprehension. '–a confidential friend came 

to see me by night, and knowing that I belonged 

to a British privateer he gave me an 

account of three American China ships sailing 

in company from Boston. This document he 

gave me as a parting present, together with 

details of their insurance, their ports of call 

and their estimated progress, in the hope that


we might be able to intercept them. At that 

time and for some hundreds of miles after I 

paid no great attention to the matter, knowing 

the uncertainty of sea-voyages: and indeed of 

my own, by land. Yet no sooner had I reached 

Valparaiso than I received word from my 

friend's correspondent in the Argentine: the 

ships had cleared from Buenos Aires on Candlemas 

Day; they meant to traverse the Straits 

le Maire and to carry on, skirting south of 

Diego Ramírez by the end of the present 

month and then heading north-east for Canton. 

I looked at the Abbot's map, and it occurred 

to me that by spreading every sail and 

straining every nerve we might get there in 

time.' 

'So we might,' said Jack, after a moment's 

calculation; and he left the cabin. Returning 

he cried, 'Oh Stephen, what are we to do with 

the balsa and all those innumerable boxes,


chests and vile bundles that fill it to what 

would be the gunwale of a Christian boat?' 

'Pray let them be brought aboard with the 

utmost care. As for the boat itself, let it be 

tossed off with a round turn, if you please, the 

cantankerous beast, though it is the clear loss 

of half a crown and eighteen pence for the 

sail, almost new. It came from the same yard 

and the same model as that which goes out 

on Thursdays for the monastery's fish, and the 

Abbot assured me that one had but to pull a 

given rope, the escota, towards the back to 

make it go faster: but this was not the case. 

Though possibly I may have pulled the wrong 

rope. There were so many boxes on the 

floor... indeed, there was so little room for me 

that I almost fell into the sea, at times.' 

'Could you not have tossed the worst overboard?'


'The kind almoner had tied them down so 

tight, and the knots were wet; and in any case 

the worst, which sat upon three several ropes, 

held my grebe, my flightless Titicaca grebe. 

You would never have expected me to throw 

away a flightless grebe, for all love? But, however, 

the monks had promised to pray for me, 

and with no more than moderate skill I survived.' 

Killick's insistent cough could be heard at the 

door, then his knock: 'Which your guests have 

arrived, sir,' he said; but his severity turned to 

an affectionate gap-toothed leer as his eyes 

wandered to gaze upon Dr Maturin. 

'Could you possibly manage dinner, 

Stephen?' asked Jack. 

'Any dinner at all,' said Stephen with great 

conviction: he was fresh from a monastery unusually 

ascetic at all times and now deep in a


penitential fast; and in an undertone he 

added, 'Even one of those infernal cavies.' 

Dinner wound on from fresh anchovies, still 

present in their countless millions, to steak of 

tunny, to a tolerable sea-pie, and so to an expected 

but still heartily welcome spotted dog. 

Stephen ate in wolfish silence until the very 

end of the sea-pie; then, being among old 

friends eager to hear, he leant back, loosened 

his waist-band, and told them something of 

his botanizing and naturalizing journey south 

from Lima to Arica, where he took ship for 

Valparaiso. 'But to reach Arica,' he said, 'we 

had to cross a very high pass, the Huechopillan, 

at more than sixteen thousand feet, and 

there my friend and I and alas a llama were 

caught in what in those parts they call a viento 

blanco and we should have perished if my 

friend Eduardo had not found a little small 

shelter in the rock. Indeed, the poor llama did


die, and I was mortally frostbitten.' 

'Was it very painful, Doctor?' asked Pullings, 

looking grave. 

'Not at all, at all, until the feeling began to 

return. And even then the whole lesion was 

less severe than I had expected. At one time I 

thought to have lost my leg below the knee, 

but in the event it was no more than a couple 

of unimportant toes. For you are to consider,' 

he observed, addressing his words to Reade, 

'that your foot bases its impulse and equilibrium 

on the great toe and the least: the loss of 

either is a sad state of affairs entirely, but with 

the two one does very well. The ostrich has but 

two the whole length of her life, and yet she 

outruns the wind.' 

'Certainly, sir,' said Reade, bowing. 

'Yet though the leg was spared, I could not 

well travel; above all after I had removed the


peccant members.' 

'How did you do that, sir?' asked Reade, unwilling 

to hear though eager to be told. 

'Why, with a chisel, as soon as we came 

down to the village. They could not be left to 

mortify, with gangrene spreading, the grief 

and the sorrow. But for a while I was reduced 

to immobility; and that was where my noble 

friend Eduardo showed his magnanimity. He 

caused a framework to be made, fitting over a 

man's chest fore and aft – fore and aft,' he repeated 

with a certain satisfaction, 'and allowing 

me to be carried on his shoulders or 

somewhat lower, sitting at my ease and facing 

backwards. They call it an Inca chair; and in 

this Inca chair I was carried over those terrible 

Inca bridges that span stupendous chasms – 

hanging bridges that sway – and I was always 

carried by fresh and powerful Indians recruited 

by my friend an Indian himself and a descen-


dant of the Incas too. He generally travelled 

by my chair, except when the path led along 

the rocky side of a precipice, which it did far, 

far too often, where there was no room for 

two abreast, and a great deal did he tell me 

about the ancient empire of Peru and the 

magnificence of its rulers. Surely,' he said, 

breaking off to listen to the run of the water 

along the ship's side and the general voice of 

taut rigging, masts, blocks, sails and yards, 

'surely we are going very fast?' 

'About eight knots, I believe, sir,' said Pullings, 

filling Stephen's glass. 'Pray tell us about 

the magnificence of Peru.' 

'Well, if gold is magnificent, and sure there is 

something imperial about gold in the mass, 

then Eduardo's account of Huayna Capac, the 

Great Inca, and his chain will please you. It 

was made when the birth of his son Huascar 

was to be celebrated in a ceremony at which


the court went through the motions of a formal 

dance, joining hands, making a circle 

and moving two steps forward, then one back, 

thus drawing closer and closer until they were 

at a proper distance for making their obeisance. 

The Inca however disapproved of this 

holding of hands; he thought it too familiar, 

quite improper, and he gave orders for a 

chain to be made, a chain which the dancers 

could hold, thus keeping their formation but 

avoiding direct physical contact, which might 

lead to irregularities. Naturally the chain was 

made of gold. The links were as thick as a 

man's wrist; the length twice that of the great 

square at Cuzco, which makes upwards of 

seven hundred feet; and its weight was such 

that two hundred Indians could only just lift it 

from the ground.' 

'Oh!' cried his listeners, who naturally enough 

included Killick and his mate Grimshaw: and


while their mouths were still rounded, young 

Wedell came in with Mr Grainger's compliments 

and duty to the Captain and might he 

set the weather studdingsails? The breeze had 

veered half a point and he reckoned they 

would stand. 

'Oh, by all means, Mr Wedell,' cried Jack. 

'Let him crack on till all sneers again.' 

Just how it became known throughout the 

ship that the Captain's chase had a beast in 

view, and that it was not only the joy of being 

homeward-bound that caused him to spread 

so much canvas, to spend so much time on 

deck, taking every possible advantage of the 

wind and whipping jibs and staysails in and 

out, could not be clearly stated; yet known it 

was, and no officer or master's mate ever had 

to emphasize, still less repeat, any order that


might carry the barky more briskly to the high 

south latitudes. 

Some of the knowledge derived from the obvious 

fact that the Doctor, though incapable 

of telling a barque from a ship or a bowline 

from a midshipman's hitch, was not as simple 

as he looked – that indeed would have been 

difficult – and that he did not spend all his 

time on shore in bowsing up his jib or inspecting 

ladies in their shifts, but sometimes picked 

up valuable news: yet this did not account for 

the 'two or three China ships out of Boston' or 

the 'south of Diego Ramírez' that could so often 

be heard on the lower deck, together with 

the calculation that a steady five knots from 

noon to noon, day after day, would get them 

there with time and to spare, which could only 

come from deliberate eavesdropping or very 

close attention to all possible clues, such as 

the Captain's poring over his charts of the


desolate regions south of the Horn. 

Yet this eagerness for a prize, so natural in 

the crew of a man-of-war, was curiously coloured 

and accentuated by Stephen's account 

of the Inca's great chain, an account that had 

nothing whatsoever to do with Boston merchantmen 

launched two hundred and fifty 

years later: it nevertheless suffused the whole 

ship's collective state of mind. 

'How much do you suppose a tolerably stout 

Indian could lift?' asked Reade. 

'They are natives, you know,' said Wedell, 

'and everyone knows that natives can raise 

prodigious great burdens, though not much 

above five feet tall.' 

'Say two hundredweight,' said Norton. 

'That makes four hundred hundredweight for 

two hundred Indians,' said Reade, writing it on 

the slate used for his rough day's work. 'Which


is twenty tons, or forty-four thousand eight 

hundred pounds. Which is seven hundred and 

sixteen thousand eight hundred ounces. What 

is gold worth an ounce?' 

'Three pounds seventeen and ten pence halfpenny,' 

said Norton. That was what Mr Adams 

reckoned when last prize money was shared 

out; and all hands agreed.' 

'Three, seventeen, ten and a half to be multiplied 

by seven hundred and sixteen thousand 

eight hundred,' said Reade. 'There ain't room 

enough for it on the slate, and anyhow they 

are avoirdupois ounces instead of Troy. But 

whichever way you look at it the answer is well 

over two millions of money. Can you imagine 

two millions of money?' 

Yes, they could – a deer-park, bow windows, 

a pack of hounds, a private band in a genteel 

conservatory – and so could others, before the


mast and abaft; and although no one was so 

simple as to confuse these two quite separate 

ideas, the hypothetical prizes far to the south 

tended to glow with an additional and quite 

charming lustre, in spite of the fact that almost 

every man aboard was already richer than he 

had ever been in his life from the earlier captures, 

and that neither the frigate's captain nor 

her surgeon really needed any more at all. 

'There is something profoundly discreditable 

about this delight in taking other men's property 

away from them by force,' observed 

Stephen, tuning his long neglected 'cello, 'taking 

it away openly, legally, and being praised, 

caressed and even decorated for doing so. I 

quell, or attempt to quell, the feeling every 

time it rises in my bosom; which it does quite 

often.' 

'Pray pass the rosin,' said Jack; and before 

dashing away into the allegro vivace of their


Boccherini he added, 'I may see little of you in 

the morning: we shall spend much of our time 

exercising the great guns. But you will never 

forget that I am to be your guest for dinner in 

the gunroom, I am sure.' Nothing could have 

been less certain. Dr Maturin had been so engrossed 

in the preliminary unpacking, sorting, 

registering, cleaning and roughly preserving 

the collections that had come aboard from the 

balsa that he was perfectly capable of forgetting 

all ordinary duties other than those of the 

sick-berth, and all social decencies. 'He is also 

capable of supposing that the ship's company 

is still much as he left it,' reflected Jack, and at 

the end of the movement he said, 'I believe 

you have not dined in the gunroom yet?' 

'I have not,' said Stephen. 'With the sick-berth 

and my collections to sort, I have scarcely 

been on deck, either, or asked half my shipmates 

how they do. You cannot readily con-


ceive the fragility of an undressed bird's skin, 

my dear.' 

'Then perhaps I should tell you of some 

changes you will see. Vidal has left the ship 

with two of his Knipperdolling cousins, and he 

has been replaced in the gunroom by William 

Sadler, a thorough-going seaman. And then 

before the mast, there was poor John Proby, 

who lost the number of his mess two days out 

of Callao.' 

'That I knew. He was in a sad decline, in spite 

of what little we could do for him in the way of 

bark and steel and linctus. But Fabien very 

kindly kept me one of his hands, recollecting 

my interest in the singular calcification of its 

sinews. Fabien is a most valuable assistant.' 

Jack could still be made uneasy by remarks 

of this kind, and it was a little while before he 

went on, 'And you will not see Bulkeley any


more, either.' 

'The facetious bosun?' 

'Just so. He had also been a bosun in the 

Navy, you know; and with the Surprise being 

run man-of-war fashion he slipped back more 

and more into his old service ways. You know 

the expression capabarre, I dare say?' 

'Certainly. I am no new-fledged canvasclimber, 

I believe. It is the topmost summit, the 

ultimate pinnacle of some towering mast.' 

'No doubt. But we commonly use it for that 

tendency in the bosuns of King's ships to steal 

all marine stores not immovably screwed 

down. I checked him once for a missing kedge 

in Annamooka and again for a coil of threeinch 

manilla at Moahu, with God knows how 

many things in between; and he promised to 

reform. But in Callao he made off with several 

lengths of chain, a can-hook, and our light-


ning-conductor, our best Snow Harris lightning-conductor; 

and when I told him of it he 

had the provoking effrontery to defend his action 

on the grounds that everyone knew that 

metal attracts the flesh and that a glass ball at 

the masthead was the only true safeguard. 

And as for the other things, they were quite 

worn out.' 

Discussing the perils of the sea in general 

and of lightning in particular came very near 

to talking shop, an act less criminal than sodomy 

(which carried the death sentence) but 

not very much so, and the gunroom cast some 

nervous looks at their guest the Captain, a 

stickler for naval etiquette; but since it was 

clear both from his thoroughly amiable expression 

and his own anecdotes that lightning 

was this side of the barrier between right and 

wrong, the subject occupied the company for


the not inconsiderable time they took to eat a 

noble turtle and empty the dish. 

The gunroom was less crowded, now that the 

merchants and ransomers had left, and it was 

more nearly naval: Jack, Stephen and Tom 

Pullings were in fact serving officers; Adams 

had walked the quarterdeck for most of his 

active life; Wilkins had served in half a dozen 

King's ships as midshipman or master's mate; 

and Grainger, together with his brother-in-law 

Sadler, had taken on the local colour in the 

most natural way. The conversation therefore 

had a greater freedom, all the more so since 

the frigate was homeward bound. 

'This very ship was struck by a levin-flash off 

Penedo in the Brazils,' observed Stephen, 'and 

she lost the mast, the spar, the thing in front – 

the bowsprout. I was asleep at the time, and 

for a moment I thought we were in the midst 

of a fleet action, the noise was so great.'


'Was there anyone killed, Doctor?' asked 

Grainger. 

'There was not.' 

'Ah,' said William Sadler, 'my cousin Jackson 

was carpenter's crew in the Diligent when she 

was struck by forked lightning near the Island 

of a Thursday. Which three hands were killed 

in the maintop; and he said their bodies 

stayed warm till Sunday after church, when 

they were obliged to be put over the side.' 

'The Repulse was laying off Spain in the year 

ten,' said Pullings. 'It was a Thursday too, and 

all hands had washed clothes. Towards evening 

clouds began to gather thick, and the 

watch below, afraid their laundry would be 

rained upon when the things were nearly dry, 

jumped aloft to take it in. There was a single 

flash, and seven dropped down dead on deck, 

while thirteen more were horribly burnt.'


'When Prince William had the Pegasus,' said 

Jack, 'a single stroke utterly destroyed her 

mainmast.' 

General considerations on lightning followed 

this – most frequent between the tropics – certain 

trees more liable to be struck than others: 

willows, ash, solitary oaks to be avoided – sultry, 

oppressive weather favourable – tolerably 

common in the temperate zone – unknown in 

Finland, Iceland and Hudson's Bay – presumably 

even more unknown nearer to either 

pole, probably because of the northern lights. 

But these remarks together with speculation on 

the nature of the electric fluid were interrupted 

by the appearance of a roast sucking-pig, 

borne in on a splendid Peruvian silver dish, 

the rescued merchants' present to the Surprise, 

and set down according to custom before Dr 

Maturin, whose skill as a carver was intimately 

known to many of those present. The talk grew


more cheerful: pigs at home, how best 

dressed – pigs, wild, on a remote island in the 

South China Sea, that had nourished Captain 

Aubrey and his people for a great while – a little 

tame black sow at Pullings' father's farm on 

the edge of the New Forest that would find 

you a basket of trubs, or truffles as some 

called them, in a morning, winking and grinning 

at you with each trub, never eating a single 

one herself. 

By the time they reached the port the conversation 

was more cheerful still, the words 

'homeward bound' recurring very often, with 

conjectures about the delightful changes to be 

seen in children, gardens, shrubberies and the 

like. 

'My grandfather,' said Grainger, 'was sailmaker's 

mate in the Centurion when Commodore 

Anson took the Acapulco galleon in 

forty-three: he had his share of the one mil-


lion, three hundred and thirteen thousand, 

eight hundred and forty-two pieces of eight 

they found in her – a figure I always remember 

– and that made him right glad, as you may 

well suppose; but when he learnt that now 

they were to steer for home he used to say it 

made him happier still.' 

'Ha, ha,' cried Wilkins, somewhat flushed with 

his wine, 'homeward bound is very well, but 

homeward bound with a pocketful of prizemoney 

is better still. Huzzay for the Horn!' 

There was a good deal of cheerful noise at 

this, and more chuckling among the messattendants 

than was either right or decent; but 

Jack, recovering his gravity, shook his head, 

saying, 'Come, gentlemen, do not let us tempt 

Fate; do not let us say anything presumptuous 

that may prove unlucky. We must not sell the 

bear's skin before we have locked the stable 

door. And locked it with a double turn.'


'Very true,' cried Pullings and Grainger. 'Very 

true. Hear him.' 

'For my part,' Jack went on, 'I shall not repine 

if we meet nothing off the Horn. We have to 

pass that way in any case; and if our hurry 

makes us no richer, why, it carries us home 

the sooner. I long to see my new plantations.' 

'I do not like the prospect of this Horn,' said 

Stephen in a low voice, 'or all this haste to 

reach it. This is in every way a most exceptional 

year – cranes have been seen flying 

north over Lima! – and the weather down 

there is sure to be more disagreeable than 

ever.' 

'But you have wonderful sea-legs, Doctor,' 

said Adams. 'And if we crack on we shall – we 

may – reach the height of the Horn at a capital 

time for the passage: barely a ripple, I 

have been told, with picnics on the island it-


self.' 

'It is my collection I am thinking of,' said 

Stephen. 'Whatever you may say, the sea 

around the Horn is bound to be damp, 

whereas my collections come from one of the 

driest parts of the whole terraneous globe. 

They need very careful attention, acres of 

oiled silk, weeks of calm, patient care in describing, 

figuring, packing. Once they are 

tumbled and tossed unprepared, on the gelid 

billows, all is lost – their pristine glory is gone 

for ever.' 

'Well, Doctor,' said Jack, 'some weeks I think I 

can promise you. Your cranes may have lost 

their heads, but the trades, or rather the antitrades, 

have kept theirs, and they are blowing 

as sweetly as ever our best friends could wish.' 

The promised weeks they had, weeks of pure


sailing, with the Surprise slanting cross the 

prevailing wind and often logging two hundred 

sea-miles between one noon observation 

and the next: weeks of close, satisfying work 

for Stephen, who was delighted with Fabien's 

exact and beautiful watercolours of the many 

specimens still in their full glory; weeks of ardent 

sailoring for Jack, with evenings full of 

music: fresh fish over the side, and penguins 

in constant attendance. And when at last the 

anti-trades faltered and left them, within a day 

the even more favourable westerlies took over. 

Those were idyllic weeks; but how difficult it 

was to remember them, to call them vividly to 

mind as an experienced reality, a fortnight after 

the ship had sailed into the true antarctic, 

and more than antarctic stream, the haunt of 

the wandering albatross, mollymauks in all 

their variety, the great bone-breaking petrel, 

the stinkpot and the ice-bird – had sailed into


that green water at fourteen knots under topsails, 

fore-courses and a jib, impelled by an 

almighty quartering wind. The change was not 

unexpected. Well before this ominous parallel 

the frigate's people had been engaged in shifting, 

packing and storing her light sails and replacing 

them with much heavier cloth, with 

storm-canvas trysails and the like for emergency. 

Many a watch had been spent in sending 

up preventer backstays, braces, shrouds 

and stays and in attending to new earings, robands, 

reef-points, reef-tackles for the courses 

and spilling-lines for the topsails, to say nothing 

of new sheets and clewlines fore and aft. 

Then again all hands had rounded the Horn 

at least once, some many times, and they took 

their long woollen drawers, their mittens and 

their Magellan jackets very seriously when they 

were served out, while most of those who had 

had any foresight dug into their chests for


Monmouth caps, Welsh wigs or padded 

domes with flaps to protect the wearer's ears 

and strings to tie beneath his chin. 

This serving-out happened on a Tuesday in 

fine clear weather, a pleasant topgallant 

breeze blowing from the north-west, and it 

seemed almost absurd: on Friday the ship was 

tearing eastwards with four men at the wheel, 

snow blurring both binnacles, hatches battened 

down, and the muffled watch on deck 

sheltering in the waist, dreading a call to 

grapple with the frozen rigging and board-stiff 

sails. 

Presently, in this incessant roar of sea and 

wind, and in this continual tension, the vision 

of the warm and mild Pacific faded, leaving 

little evidence apart from Stephen's collections, 

neatly labelled, noted and wrapped in oiled 

silk and then sailcloth, carefully packed into 

thoroughly watertight casks set up by the coo-


per, and stowed in the hold; and apart from 

the remarkable store of provisions Mr Adams 

had laid in. He had had a free hand; he was 

not bound by the pinch-penny rules of the 

King's service, since in her present state the 

Surprise was run on the privateer's tradition of 

the ship's own money, her personal reserve to 

be laid out in marine stores, food and drink, a 

stated share of all the prizes – a very handsome 

sum after the sale of the Franklin, the 

Alastor and the whalers – and she was sailing 

eastwards deep-laden with provisions of the 

highest quality, enough to last another circumnavigation. 

This was just as well, for after a few days of 

the first icy blow, when the deathly chill had 

worked right into the whole ship from keelson 

to cabin, all hands began to eat with far more 

than usual eagerness. Their hunger persisted, 

since the roaring westerly storm had sent the


ship a great way, at great speed, south and 

east into the high fifties, a cold region at the 

best and now even colder in this unusual year, 

even without a wind: frequent rain; even more 

frequent sleet and snow; most hands wet most 

of the time; all of them always cold. 

In such very thick weather observation was 

impossible for days on end, and in spite of his 

chronometers and well-worn sextant, and of 

the presence of three other expert navigators 

aboard, Jack could not be sure of his longitude 

or latitude, dead-reckoning in such wind 

and seas being wonderfully uncertain. He 

therefore reduced sail, and the frigate moved 

eastwards at an average of no more than 

three knots, sometimes under bare poles or 

with a mere scrap of sail right forward to give 

her steerage-way when the wind blew a full 

gale from the west. Yet there were also those 

strange antarctic calms, when the albatrosses


(and half a dozen followed the Surprise, together 

with some Cape pigeons and most of 

the smaller petrels) sat on the heaving sea, 

unwilling or unable to rise; and during two of 

these the drum beat to quarters, as it had 

done all the way south from Valparaiso, and 

the gun-crew exercised their pieces, housing 

them warm, dry and new-charged, with the 

touch-hole covered and the tompions doubly 

waterproofed with grease, ready for instant 

service. 

It was after the second of these exercises – 

two fine rippling broadsides, almost up to the 

old Surprise's astonishing accuracy and speed 

– that the sky cleared and Jack had a series of 

perfect observations of first the sun, then 

Achernar, and later Mars himself, positions 

that were confirmed by the other officers and 

that showed that in spite of this dawdling their 

initial zeal had brought them almost to the


rendezvous far too soon. The China ships intended 

to pass south of Diego Ramírez with 

the full moon, and in her present stage she 

was only three days old: that would mean a 

great deal of beating to and fro in the most 

inhospitable seas known to man, with no more 

than a passable likelihood of success after all. 

Quite apart from the unpredictable winds, foul 

weather or fair, state of the sea and so on, 

merchantmen on such a voyage never attempted 

any great accuracy of movement. 

'We shall have to stand off and on until well 

past the full,' said Jack at supper – fish soup, a 

dish of sweetbreads, Peruvian cheese, two 

bottles of Coquimbo claret – 'The full of the 

moon, of course.' 

'An uninviting prospect,' said Stephen. 'Last 

night I was unable to control my 'cello because 

of the erratic jerking of the floor, and 

this evening most of my soup is spread on my


lap; while day after day men are brought below 

with cruel bruises, even broken bones, 

and are falling from the frozen ropes above or 

slipping on the icy deck below. Do you not 

think it would be better to go home?' 

'Yes. It often occurs to me, but then my innate 

nobility of character cries out, 'Hey, Jack Aubrey: 

you mind your duty, d'ye hear me there?' 

Do you know about duty, Stephen?' 

'I believe I have heard it well spoken of.' 

'Well, it exists. And apart from the obvious 

duty of distressing the King's enemies – not 

that I have anything against Americans: they 

are capital seamen and they treated us most 

handsomely in Boston. But it is my duty. Apart 

from that, I say, we also have a duty to the officers 

and the foremast jacks. They have 

brought the barky here in the hope of three 

China ships, and if I call out, 'Oh be damned


to your three China ships' what will they say? 

They are not man-of-war's men; and even if 

they were...' 

Stephen nodded. The argument was unanswerable. 

But he was not quite satisfied. 'As I 

was stuffing a green Andean parakeet this afternoon,' 

he said, 'another thought came to 

me. As you say, the Americans are capital 

seamen: they beat us hollow in the Java, and 

carried us prisoners away. Do you not feel that 

attacking three of their China ships is somewhat 

rash? Does it not smack of that pride 

which goeth before destruction?' 

'Oh dear no. These are not solid great 

Indiamen, these are not thousand-ton Company's 

ships that you could take for men-ofwar, 

nor anything like it. They are quite modest 

private merchantmen with a few sixpounders 

and swivels and small-arms, just to


beat off the pirates of the South China Sea: 

they have nothing like the very heavy crew of a 

man-of-war, above all an American man-ofwar, 

and they could not fire a full broadside 

even if they carried the guns, which they don't. 

No. In the unlikely event of their keeping all 

together and manoeuvring just so, they must 

still fall victims to even a quite small frigate 

capable of firing three well-directed hundred 

and forty-four-pound broadsides in under five 

minutes.' 

'Well,' said Stephen. And then, 'If we must 

wait for your more or less mythical Chinamen, 

if we must wait until your sense of duty is satisfied, 

may we not go just a little way south, just 

to the edge of the ice? How charming that 

would be.' 

'With all due respect, Stephen, I must tell you 

that I utterly decline to go anywhere near any 

ice whatsoever, however thin, however deeply


laden with seals, great auks, or other wonders 

of the deep. I hate and despise ice. Ever since 

our mortal time with the ice-island in the horrible 

old Leopard, I have always sworn never 

to give it any countenance.' 

'My dear,' said Stephen, pouring him another 

glass of wine, 'how well a graceful timidity 

does become you.' 

Stephen Maturin had little room to prate 

about timidity. In the relatively tranquil forenoon 

watch of the following day Captain Aubrey 

caused a crow's nest, in the whaler's 

manner, to be set up on the main topmast 

head, a crow's nest stuffed with straw, so that 

the lookout should not freeze to death. Dr 

Maturin having publicly expressed a wish to 

see farther to the south in case, on this clear 

day, ice might be visible, Jack, in the presence


of his officers and several hands, invited him 

to take a view from this eminence: Stephen 

looked at the masts (the ship was rolling 

twenty-one degrees and pitching twelve) and 

blenched, but he lacked the moral courage to 

refuse and within minutes he was rising 

through the maze of rigging, rising on a double 

whip with several turns about his person 

and a look of contained horror on his face. 

Bonden and young Wedell steered him 

through the shrouds and backstays and their 

reinforcements, Jack preceded him by foot, 

and between them they got him safe into the 

nest. 

'Now I come to think of it,' said Jack, who 

had meant no harm at all, 'I do not believe 

you have ever been aloft with the ship a little 

skittish. I hope it don't make you uneasy?' 

'Not at all,' said Stephen, glancing over the 

edge at the absurdly distant white-streaked


sea immediately below on the starboard roll 

and closing his eyes again. 'I like it of all 

things.' 

'I am afraid you will not see much in the 

south,' said Jack. He pointed his telescope 

and kept it fixed while the mast upon which he 

was poised went through its gyrations, swinging 

his pigtail left and then right and then 

straight out behind. 

Watching it as he lay there coiled in the 

straw, Stephen asked, 'How much do you suppose 

we move, at all?' 

'Well,' said Jack, still sweeping the southern 

rim of the world, 'we are rolling about twenty 

degrees and pitching let us say twelve: so at 

this height the roll should carry us some seventy-five 

feet and the pitch forty-five. And we 

describe a tolerably angular ellipse. Are you 

sure it don't worry you?'


'Never in life,' said Stephen, bringing himself 

to look over the edge again: and having 

looked, 'Tell me, brother, do people ever 

come this way voluntarily? I mean, apart from 

those that ply up and down the American 

coast?' 

'Oh yes. With the steady westerlies and the 

west-wind drift this is the quickest way from 

New South Wales to the Cape. Oh dear me, 

yes. They began using it at the very beginning 

of the infernal colony, you remember, and the 

Navy still... I tell you what, Stephen: there is 

something very nasty blowing up in the south. 

The swell is already with us and I fear a deadly 

storm. Bonden. Bonden, there. Clap on to the 

line: I am sending the Doctor down. Bear a 

hand, bear a hand.' 

It was a cruel hard blow, and the Surprise 

clawed off from Diego Ramírez and its long


tail of rocks as far and fast as ever she could, 

sometimes making fair headway, sometimes 

lying-to under storm trysails when the prodigious 

southern swell compelled her to do so, 

but always keeping enough sea-room for the 

comfort of those aboard, every man-jack of 

whom dreaded a lee-shore more than anything 

in this world and perhaps the next. That 

however was the only kind of comfort they 

knew until at last the storm blew itself out. For 

the rest of the time the ship was in very violent 

motion, with green seas sweeping her deck 

fore and aft, nobody turning in dry, nobody lying 

warm, nobody having a hot meal and 

rarely a hot drink, all hands called night after 

night. 

Yet the storm did blow itself out; the strong 

westerlies returned, and the frigate made her 

uneven way back across the southern swell cut 

into frightful seas by a strong sideways blast.


Most very strong irregular winds have freakish 

effects and this was no exception: no men 

were lost or seriously injured, but on the other 

hand the well-lashed and double griped spare 

top and topgallant masts on the leeward side 

of the booms flew overboard, together with 

other valuable spars, like a bundle of twigs, 

while the Doctor's skiff, stowed inside the untouched 

launch, was utterly destroyed; and 

while the Doctor himself, contemplating the 

apocalyptic scene from a scuttle in the cabin 

(he was not allowed on deck) saw a sight 

unique in his experience : an albatross, navigating 

the great crests and troughs with all its 

natural skill, was surprised by a flying packet 

of water plucked from a cross-current and 

dashed into the sea. It arose from the boil with 

an enormous wing-stroke and fled across the 

face of the rising wave: no sound could of 

course be heard, but Stephen thought he de-


tected a look of extreme indignation on its 

face. 

They were back on their station, with the islands 

clear on the larboard beam except in 

thick weather. But they had brought the cold 

with them, the right antarctic cold of the high 

sixties and beyond; and although the midshipmen's 

berth took a perverse delight in fishing 

up pieces of drift-ice to freeze their already 

frigid grog, the older hands, particularly those 

who had sailed in South Sea whalers, looked 

upon it with sullen disapproval, as a mark of 

worse, far worse, to come. 

This cold, and this for late summer unparallelled 

show of ice, meant that whenever the 

westerlies paused, which they sometimes did, 

without any rhyme or reason that could be 

made out, the air was filled with mist or even 

downright fog.


They paused indeed in the middle watch of 

the Friday after the ship's return, the day after 

the full moon, and presently they were succeeded 

by an air from the north; this strengthened 

with the rising of the sun and immediately 

after breakfast the man in the crow's nest 

hailed the deck in an enormous voice of passionate 

intensity: 'Sail ho! Two sail of ships on 

the larboard bow.' 

The hail reached the cabin, where Jack was 

drinking coffee in a battered half-pint mug 

and eating eggs. He had already started up, 

thrusting both from him when Reade darted in, 

crying, 'Two sail of ships, sir, fine on the larboard 

bow.' 

Jack ran aloft, straight up without a pause, 

the hoar-frost scattering from the ratlines under 

his feet. The lookout moved down on to 

the yard to leave him room, calling up, 'They 

have just cleared the middle island, sir. Top-


sails and courses. Which I saw them clear before 

the fog closed in.' 

Time passed. The intently listening silence on 

deck was broken by two bells: no one heard 

the steady heave of the south-western swell at 

all. In these latitudes a sea-fog could resist 

almost any amount of wind, being bred from 

the surface itself; yet the wind could tear gaps 

in it, and the wind did so just as the cold was 

beginning to pinch Jack Aubrey's nose and 

ears. Three miles to the north-east he saw the 

two ships, their sails white against the black islands 

of Diego Ramírez: three to four hundred 

tons, bluff-bowed, broad in the beam. Stout 

merchantmen, no doubt, capable of cramming 

a great deal into their hold: but surely 

very, very slow. 

With his glass to his good eye he studied the 

nearest: she seemed to be getting ready to 

change course, bringing the wind on to her


quarter in order to sail westward round the 

southern shore of the last island in the group 

before hauling her wind and steering as near 

north into the Pacific as the breeze would allow. 

Both her watches were on deck, of 

course, a meagre crew: and with so few hands 

no brisk manoeuvre could be expected. Yet 

even so she seemed strangely hesitant about 

this sensible, straightforward operation; and 

all at once it occurred to Jack that she was the 

leader, the ship which had been there before, 

which pointed out the way, and that she was 

finding it very difficult to induce her second 

astern to take notice of her signals. Admittedly, 

the second astern was more often 

blurred by fog than not; and in this light flags 

were difficult to read. His theory was confirmed 

almost at once: the leading ship fired a 

gun, and all her people stared eagerly astern 

to see what effect it would have. She seemed


to be keeping no look-out at all. In any case 

he was morally certain that she had not seen 

the Surprise: the frigate, lying with reefed 

courses against a blurred grey background, 

would have been very hard to see in any case, 

and to those who had no notion of any enemy 

within five thousand miles she was virtually invisible. 

The China ships' intention was perfectly obvious. 

And if the Surprise ran a little way to the 

east and then steered north she would have 

the weather-gage, which would enable her to 

bring them to action when she pleased. Yet he 

would not hurry things: there was the possibility 

of the third ship. And as they had been as 

regular as the Bath to London stage-coach as 

far as time was concerned there seemed a 

strong likelihood that they would be equally 

exact in number; and it would be a sad shame 

not to bag the whole shooting-match. The


third ship must be allowed to sail right through 

the tangled islands and join her companions, 

for once she was in the open sea there was no 

return with this breeze. Very soon the wind 

would back into the west, and with the Surprise's 

remarkable powers of sailing closehauled 

the merchantmen could not hope to 

escape. 

He leaned over the edge of the crow's nest 

and in a quiet voice he called, 'Captain Pullings.' 

'Sir?' 

'Pray let all hands go to quarters, but without 

any noise at all: no drum. And as soon as the 

fog closes in on us, make sail, all plain sail: 

course north-north-east. For the moment let 

Mr Norton go into the mizen-top with a glass 

and Bonden to the fore.'


The muffled sound of many feet below: guns 

run out with infinite precaution – no more than 

the faint squeak of a truck, the inevitable but 

stifled clash of round-shot. Then the fog 

closed in and without a single order the sails 

dropped from their yards or rose silently along 

their stays. 

The frigate gathered way. Pullings could be 

heard saying, 'Thus, thus, very well thus,' to the 

helmsman as she settled on her course. Three 

bells. 'Dowse that God-damn bell,' said Jack, 

rather loud. 

Fifteen minutes more, and as he had expected 

the breeze freshened, backing westward. 

He felt a sudden chill waft about him; 

and he was not alone, for the whalers looked 

at one another with a meaning nod. 

'Sir,' called Bonden. 'Two sail of ships on the 

larboard beam. No. A brig and a ship.'


'Where away?' asked Jack. His injured eye 

was now watering extremely in the icy breeze, 

blurring the sight of both. 

'Which I've lost them now, sir,' said Bonden. 

'The ship seemed a fair size: topsails and I 

think forecourse: but they come and go. 

Sometimes you would say a ship of the line, 

sometimes only a sloop.' 

Silence. Blankness: grey trails of mist wafted 

through the rigging, leaving ice-crystals on 

every strand. Jack whipped a handkerchief 

over his poor eye, and he was still knotting the 

ends when an eddy tore something of a window 

in the fog. The China ships, all three of 

them now, could be seen quite plain: they had 

cleared the islands and they were well to the 

south of them, exactly where reason had foretold. 

But illogically the newcomers, though 

closer to, indeed between the Surprise and her 

quarry, were much vaguer, mere looming


shapes. 

Yet they were clear enough for Awkward Davies 

to bawl out, 'Now there are five of the 

poor unfortunate buggers. Five!' in an exulting 

roar, instantly suppressed; and Jack had a 

fleeting glimpse of gun-ports on the large vessel 

before they both merged in the grey ness 

once more, slightly darker forms that soon 

vanished entirely. 

There followed a long period of total uncertainty, 

with the fog thickening, clearing, thickening 

again, and both lookouts confusing the 

object they reported, sometimes taking the 

brig for the ship or the other way about – the 

two vessels were moving quite fast in relation 

to one another – while even the experienced 

Bonden varied strangely about their size. 

Jack saw virtually nothing. It seemed to him 

that these were almost certainly Spaniards,


merchantmen bound for Valparaiso and to the 

northward; the larger one, if she was really as 

large as she sometimes seemed to be, a thousand 

tons and more, possibly for the Philippines. 

The row of gunports was neither here 

nor there: even if they were real that did not 

mean there were any guns behind them. Most 

merchantmen had a full array, real or painted, 

as some sort of a deterrent. 

'Sail ho. Sail on the starboard bow, sir,' 

called Norton. Jack whipped round, saw the 

towering whiteness loom through the mist, 

thinning over there, and heard Norton cry, 

'Oh no, oh no, sir. I'm sorry. It's an ice-island.' 

Yes. And there was another beyond it, with 

more appearing in the south and the east as 

the fog grew patchy; and now the particular 

chill of a breeze blowing off ice was far more 

pronounced.


By this time the Surprise was perfectly well 

placed for her attack on the China ships. They 

were well beyond the islands, moving steadily 

a little south of west, and with the present 

breeze she could cross their wake under a 

moderate press of sail within an hour or so. 

The misty newcomers lay between the Surprise 

and her prey – she would probably pass within 

hail – and as he contemplated those vague 

forms, now remarkably large and even doubled 

by the odd reflexion from frozen mist particles 

coupled with what dim shadows they 

were capable of casting, it occurred to him 

that the ship might conceivably be a Spanish 

man-of-war sent to deal with the Alastor, news 

of her depredation having reached Cadiz. 'If 

that is the case,' he reflected, 'I shall ask 

Stephen to have a civil word with her.' 

He leant over, meaning to tell Pullings to 

wear the ship round on to her new westward


course, but even as he gathered his breath he 

heard that never-to-be-forgotten sound of falling 

ice as a mass the size of a parish church 

broke from the nearest island and plunged a 

hundred feet into the sea, sending up an immense 

turmoil of spray and leaping water, 

and he changed the order to that for tacking, 

a quicker operation altogether though much 

less economical in wear and tear and effort. 

'The sooner we are out of this the better,' he 

reflected, glancing astern at the huge forms 

moving steadily northwards through the fog, 

although they were already much further to 

the north than they had any right to be at this 

time of the year. 

The ship was round on her new tack and 

gathering way; all had been coiled down and 

hands were laying out on the foretopgallantyards 

when the brig showed dim on 

the larboard beam, then plainer and plainer.


'The brig ahoy,' hailed Jack in his powerful 

voice, now from the quarterdeck. No reply, 

but in the rapidly clearing air a great deal of 

activity could be made out. 

'Colours,' said Jack to Reade, the signal midshipman; 

and then louder, very much louder, 

as the colours broke out, 'What ship is that? 

Qué barco está?' 

'Noah's Ark, ten days out of Ararat, New Jersey,' 

replied the brig, with a cackle of maniac 

laughter. Her big fore-and-aft mainsail was 

hauled right aft, she heeled violently to leeward, 

her stern-chaser went off, sending a ball 

through the Surprise's forestaysail, and she 

vanished into the mist. 

The Surprise replied at random. The crack of 

the single gun, a forecastle carronade, was 

still echoing to and fro between the curtains of 

fog when a second dark form heaved up on


the starboard bow, grew rapidly distinct, and 

lit the remaining mist between them with a 

thundering broadside, eighteen crimson 

flashes. The guns had been fired on the 

downward roll and most of the shot fell short, 

but some hit the Surprise by ricochet, breaking 

through the hammocks in the netting and rolling 

across the deck: eighteen pound roundshot. 

The smoke swept to leeward, much of 

the mist with it, and clear and plain Jack saw 

a heavy American frigate, a thirty-eight-gun 

ship with a three hundred and forty-two 

pounds broadside, apart from her chasers and 

carronades. 

The Surprise was hopelessly outgunned and 

with her small privateer's crew hopelessly outmanned; 

while there was also the brig-of-war 

ready to infest her disengaged side or rake her 

from astern. 'Fire as they bear,' cried Jack. He 

bore the helm up: the ship's head fell off from


the wind: her starboard guns bore in succession 

and fired, each with accurate deliberation. 

She had a surprising amount of way on her 

and in a quick aside Jack said, 'Tom, I am going 

to put her about if ever she will stay: do 

what you can.' Then aloud, 'Larboard guns: 

one round as they bear. Sail-trimmers away.' 

He put the helm over; the good ship responded, 

turning, turning, turning, dead into 

the wind. If she missed stays, if she fell off, all 

was lost. She turned yet, turning just beyond 

the crucial point, with hands madly flatting-in 

forward to help her, filled her jib and head 

staysails on the other tack and she was round: 

and the larboard guns were bearing, at pointblank 

range. The moment the last was fired 

and made fast the gun-crews all leapt to 

brace round and to haul aft the sheets that 

had been let go and to clear the horrible ap-


parent confusion. 

Jack gave the course east-north-east a half 

east, hoping to weather the nearest iceberg on 

his starboard bow, the only way out of this impossible 

encounter; and as soon as there were 

a few hands free he called, 'Topgallants and 

weather studding-sails,' while he and those he 

could gather together attended to the 

unloaded guns. 

Although he was somewhat taken aback by 

this shockingly improper going-about, a manoeuvre 

that had brought the Surprise so close 

to his larboard bow that quite apart from the 

terrible effect of her round-shot, fragments of 

glowing wad had come aboard, lighting a 

spilt cartridge and causing an explosion, the 

American captain brought his ship round, 

spreading canvas at an extraordinary rate and 

steering a parallel course, somewhat to leeward, 

close-hauled to the strengthening wind,


now at north-west. 

Obviously he had made his turn later than 

Jack, which set him close on a mile behind 

and almost as much farther east; yet even so 

he thought he too might weather the iceisland, 

although it was moving steadily northwards. 

This particular island – for there were 

many others in sight, south and east – could 

now be seen as a whole in the increasing 

light, full two miles across, rising in steep 

crags and spires, green in general but ice-blue 

in the towering middle regions; and its northwestern 

point, the point which the Surprise 

must weather if she were to have any chance 

of escaping destruction, and the point for 

which the American was steering with such 

energy, ended in a sheer ice-cliff, much worn, 

fretted into pinnacles. 

To begin with the American, with his full 

man-of-war's complement of hands, had been


able to spread more canvas in spite of the 

damage and slaughter of that brief pointblank 

engagement and to make up some of 

the lost distance; but now that the Surprises 

had set their gun-deck in order they evened 

the difference and both ships raced through 

the frigid sea with everything their masts could 

bear, bowlines twanging taut, both firing 

chasers as they ran. 

Jack left the gunnery to Pullings and Mr 

Smith. He stood at the con, sailing the ship, 

getting every inch of windward distance out of 

the wind's thrust, calculating leeway, gazing at 

the fatal cliff with his good eye, feeling the 

pain in his heart as the bows and cutwater hit 

drifting ice, a terribly frequent sound and 

sometimes very dangerous. He dared not ship 

a protective bow-grace: he could not risk the 

slightest diminution of the frigate's speed. 

It was with the horror of a nightmare that he


saw the calm, doom-like motion of the iceisland. 

The vast bulk moved with the apparent 

ease of a cloud and the slight expanse of safe 

water to the windward of its tip was narrowing, 

narrowing every minute. 

'Sir,' said Wilkins, 'the brig has altered 

course.' 

Certainly: Jack had expected it. These turns 

and her own manoeuvres had brought the 

brig to the westward of both ships, on the Surprise's 

quarter and somewhat nearer to her 

than the heavy frigate; and for the last two 

miles she had been losing steadily. Now, in 

answer to a signal, she was bearing up with 

the evident intention of crossing the Surprise's 

stern and raking her, firing a broadside that 

would run the whole length of the ship. It was 

a bold move, since Jack had only to make a 

slight turn to larboard to bring his own broadside 

to bear and quite possibly sink her. But


the time taken by even a slight turn, by the 

discharge and the falling off again to her true 

course would almost certainly make the Surprise 

lose her race against the iceberg's 

movement. 

'My compliments to Captain Pullings,' he 

said, having looked fore and aft, 'and beg he 

will direct all his attention to the brig's foremast 

and yard.' 

The stern-chase guns in the cabin below increased 

their rate of fire. Eight shots in rapid 

succession, and there was a triumphant roar. 

Jack turned, saw the brig shoot up into the 

wind, her square foresail down on deck, her 

fore-and-aft mainsail swinging her helplessly 

out of control. He nodded, but the real essence 

of the matter lay ahead: not half a mile 

ahead. With his good eye he could now 

gauge his leeway exactly against a long fissure 

in the ice. It would be a near-run thing, a


damned near-run thing. He had the wheel 

under his hands, easing her very gently to the 

rise of each swell, urging her a trifle and still 

another trifle to windward, to the thin lane at 

the cliff's very foot itself. Not two cables now, 

and they were running at eight knots. There 

was no turning back. 

'Sir,' said Wilkins again, 'the frigate ports her 

helm.' Again Jack nodded. She had been to 

the leeward of the Surprise from the beginning: 

now she had no chance whatsoever of 

weathering the point and she meant to hit the 

Surprise as hard as ever she could, crippling 

her before she was out of reach. He 

shrugged: his course was wholly committed 

now, and again he eased the helm, his eyes 

as intent upon the lane of green water as they 

might have been on a tall hedge with God 

knows what beyond, and he galloping towards 

it. He was aware of the whiter surf rising on


the white ice at the cliff's foot, of a still whiter 

albatross crossing the swell, and even before 

he heard the American's broadside he was 

stunned and deafened by the enormous crash 

of ice falling from the cliff itself; he felt the 

ship's hull tremble and then grate on the iceberg's 

submerged outer shelf, and saw the 

mizenmast, shot through in two separate 

places, sway, break and go slowly over the 

side. 

'Axes, axes,' he roared. 'Cut all away. Cut 

clear, cut clear.' Shrouds, backstays, rigging 

all whipped free; the ship ran past the ice-cliff, 

her mainyard scraping, past and beyond into 

the open water: sea-room and to spare for a 

good three miles. Ice-islands thick beyond. 

She answered her helm perfectly: she was an 

entirely living ship: and there was a prodigious 

mass of ice between her and the enemies' 

guns. Jack was aware of some confusion in


his mind: just in what order had things happened? 

Not that it signified. The ship was 

swimming in clear water. He sent Reade to ask 

the carpenter to sound the well and then 

looked for the destruction here on deck. There 

was surprisingly little. The mizen had gone as 

clean as a whistle, and the bosun, together 

with his mates, was knotting and splicing. 

'What damage did it do among the people?' 

he asked Wilkins. 

'None this last bout, sir. The ice missed us by 

a shaver.' 

Pullings came aft, smiling, curiously talkative, 

a marline-spike in his hand. 'Give you joy of 

our passage, sir,' he said. 'At one moment I 

did not think she could do it, and my heart 

was fairly in my mouth. And then when the ice 

came down I said, 'All up with you, Pullings, 

old cock' But, however, it missed.'


'You saw what happened?' 

'Why, yes, sir. I had just put my head over the 

top of the ladder when the Yankee opened 

fire: deliberate shots at first – one hit the 

mizen below the hounds – and then when we 

were weathering the point and running clear, 

all her remaining guns at once, and some of 

their shots hit the ice, or perhaps it was just 

the concussion: anyway a thundering great 

steeple came down, a thousand ton, I dare 

say. I never seen the like nor heard it. Plunged 

into our wake, soaked one and all; and some 

odd fragments spoilt the gingerbread work on 

the taffrail.' 

Jack perceived that he was indeed deeply 

soaked behind; and perhaps still somewhat 

shattered by the fantastic uproar. He said, 

'How I regret the mizen. But a moment's attempt 

at saving it would have brought us right 

on the ice. As it was we scraped most horribly,


and I tremble for our copper. Yes, Mr Reade?' 

'If you please, sir, Chips says...' 

'What was that, Mr Reade?' 

'Beg pardon, sir. Mr Bentley says two inches 

in the well, no more.' 

'Very good. Tom, we must put before the 

wind or close on until we can ship a jurymizen. 

Pick our oldest whale-men and send 

them into the crow's nest one after another to 

pick us a way through the ice: there is a terrible 

quantity to leeward. Let a stout bow-grace 

be prepared; and since we are not likely to 

see that big fellow' – nodding westwards – 'until 

he has gone about twice, let the galley fires 

be lit and all hands fed.' 

'He may consider it his duty to hurry back and 

protect his convoy,' said Pullings. 

'Let us hope he has a very strong sense of 

duty, an overwhelming sense of duty,' said


Jack. 

In fact the big American did not round the 

point until well on in the afternoon. The devoted 

brig had not only lost her yard, shot 

through in the slings, but had also stopped a 

nine-pounder ball just under the waterline and 

sprung a butt: water and pieces of ice were 

pouring into her. By this time the Surprise, 

keeping the wind one and two points on her 

starboard quarter as far as the ice allowed it, 

had travelled ten miles in a straight line – 

more of course when her deviations to avoid 

icebergs and close-packed ice-fields were 

counted – and it was from this distance, the 

fog having largely cleared, that at last her 

lookout saw the big American. Yet she too 

would have to thread those devious channels 

and circumvent the same islands, and Jack sat 

down to his belated dinner with as easy a


mind as was compatible with the loss of a 

mast, the presence of an active and enterprising 

enemy, and of an unconscionable amount 

of ice ahead in the form of floating islands or 

massive floes. 

He had already been down to the sick-berth 

to see the very moderate casualties – two 

splinter wounds, one of them the invariably 

unfortunate Joe Plaice; one man struck into a 

coma by a falling block but not despaired of; 

one man with toes and metatarsals crushed by 

a recoiling gun – and he had told Stephen 

that dinner would be ready by eight bells, 

adding, 'Four o'clock, you know,' in case he 

did not. 

He did, however, and at the first stroke he 

walked eagerly in, wiping his hands. 'I am so 

sorry if I have kept you, but I had to take that 

foot off after all: such a mass of comminuted 

bone. Pray tell me how we do.'


'Pretty well, I thank you. The American is ten 

miles astern, and I do not think he can possibly 

come within range before nightfall. Allow 

me to give you a piece of this fish, a cousin to 

the cod, it seems.' 

'They tell me we have lost a mast. Will this 

impede our progress to any fatal degree – will 

it reduce our pace by say a third?' 

'I hope not. When we are sailing large the 

mizen makes surprisingly little difference; and 

less than you might think close-hauled. With a 

side-wind the balance would be upset and she 

would fall off sadly: I should not like to be 

chased by a herring-buss in the open ocean 

with a strong side wind. But I hope that the 

westerlies or south-westerlies will go on blowing 

until some lingering notion of responsibility 

makes the captain of that frigate turn back to 

his convoy.'


'I do not believe those ships were his convoy: 

I believe there was a chance meeting in say 

the river Plate, no more. But it makes little 

odds, since I am convinced he will protect 

them now. My dear, you look sadly done up; 

and your appetite has failed you. Drink up 

another glass of wine and breathe as deeply 

as you can. I shall give you a comfortable 

dose tonight.' 

'No, Stephen: many thanks, but it would not 

do. I shall not turn in; nor I shall not heave to, 

neither. I dare not let that cove – a determined 

and bloody-minded cove if ever there was one 

– creep up on me in the night. Coffee is more 

the mark than a dose, however comfortable 

and kindly intended. Let us toy with these 

chops. I do love a dry chop, a really well-dried 

mutton chop, turned twice a day.' 

The well-dried chops sustained him all that


night, which he spent in the crow's nest, kept if 

not warm then at least preserved from death 

by a sequence of whalers and refreshed every 

other hour by the truly devoted Killick or his 

mate who came aloft in mittens, holding a villainous 

tin pot of coffee, slung by a loop, in 

their teeth. 

A fairly clear night, particularly at ten or 

twenty feet above the surface; a moderate 

swell for these parts; and above all the blessed 

moon, only just past the full and as brilliant as 

extreme cold could make her. The watch on 

deck, muffled in their Magellan jackets, with 

flannel shirts over their heads, stood by to 

shove off floating slabs of ice with what spars 

the ship still possessed; and so, with the whalers 

advising what lanes to take, the Surprise 

groped her way cautiously eastwards and as 

far north of east as ever she could manage. In 

spite of the stout bow-grace and the zeal of


those employed in shoving-off, she received 

some wicked strokes from thick, deepswimming 

floes, and several times the highperched 

Jack Aubrey trembled for his nest – 

literally trembled with extreme cold, weariness 

and the grave tension of guiding his ship 

through this potentially mortal maze: he was 

no longer a young man. 

By the strange sunrise he was older still: a 

sun rising in a clear sky that presently grew 

light sapphire blue, while the sea took on a 

deeper tinge and the ice-islands showed at 

some points pure rosy pink and at others 

bright ultramarine. But there, at seven miles or 

less, considerably farther south, lay the dogged 

American. In this light her hull looked 

black; and she had already begun to set more 

sail. 

Jack swung over the side of the crow's nest, 

and as he gripped the topmost shrouds his


frozen hand slipped on the coat of ice: he 

would have fallen but that his legs, so long at 

sea, instantly whipped round the shroud below 

and held him for the vital moment. 

On deck he said, 'Tom, when the hands have 

had their breakfast let us shake out our reefs 

and set the foretopgallant. Look at that fellow' 

– nodding southwards – 'he has studdingsails 

both sides, aloft and alow.' 

'I dare say he has a clear stretch of water, for 

the moment; but I must say the ice-field looks 

right solid down there,' said Pullings hopefully, 

and they both staggered as the Surprise struck 

yet another heavy floe. 

There was a hanging stove lit in the cabin, 

still more coffee, endless eggs and bacon, 

toast, a creditable Peruvian orange marmalade. 

Jack, stripped to his waistcoat, absorbed 

these things and the warmth; but he had little


conversation, merely observing that he had 

seen an albatross, several seals, and a most 

prodigious whale. Stephen spoke, in a desultory 

fashion, about ice-islands, and the sudden 

change in colour at the point of cleavage 

when some great mass fell into the sea. 'This I 

have observed in a telescope,' he said, then 

paused, for Jack's head was sinking on his 

breast. 

'If you please, sir,' cried Reade, bouncing in, 

alive with youthful joy, 'Captain Pullings says 

would you like to step on deck.' 

'Eh?' asked Captain Aubrey. 

Reade said it again and Jack heaved himself 

up, all seventeen stone. Reade led him blinking 

aft, passed him a telescope and said, 

'There, sir: directly to windward.' 

Jack gazed, changed the glass to his good 

eye, gazed again, his tired face lighting with a


great smile; he stamped upon the frozen deck, 

and cried, 'He counted his chickens without his 

host, by God! Ha, ha, ha!' for the big frigate 

lay motionless, her sails brailed up; and she 

was getting her boats over the side. 'On deck, 

there,' hailed the lookout, one of the Surprise's 

whale-men. 'Sir, she's gone down a lane in the 

ice-field, a blind alley, like. A nothoroughfare, 

ha, ha, ha. And she'll have to 

tow back three miles into the wind's eye, oh 

ha, ha, ha!' And in something of an undertone 

to his mate at the foremast head, 'Oh, won't 

he cop it, that poor bleeding sod of a lookout 

of theirs, ha, ha!' 

The distant ship fired a gun to leeward, sending 

up a cloud of antarctic skuas from a dead 

and drifting whale. 

'The enemy has fired a leeward gun, sir, if 

you please,' reported the signal midshipman.


'You astonish me, Mr Reade,' said Jack. 'And 

now, I perceive, she is throwing out a signal. 

Be so good as to read it.' 

Norton stepped forward; Reade rested the 

telescope on his shoulder, focused, and said, 

'Alphabetic, sir: our alphabet. H,A,P,P,Y 

R,E,T,U,R,N, sir.' 

'Come,' cried Jack, 'that's handsome. Reply 

Same to you. Who is their president, Tom?' 

'Mr Washington, I believe,' said Pullings, after 

some thought. 

'Compliments to Mr Washington would be 

too long by far. No, leave it at that, Mr Reade; 

and give him a gun in return. Tom,' he went 

on, 'let us not crack on at all, but proceed 

east-north-east at a walking-pace until we are 

out of this infernal ice. Let us not rush upon 

our doom like a parcel of mad lunatics or 

gabardine swine. A walking-pace, Captain


Pullings; and in the afternoon we will start 

work on a jury-mast.' 

In his happy ease of heart he now went 

straight to sleep in the warm cabin, never 

moving until dinner-time, when he woke, fresh 

and clear-headed, aware that the ship had 

touched no ice for some hours; he took a turn 

on deck, observed that although the sky was 

murky in the north-east the sea was as open 

as the Channel except far, far to the south, 

where ice and the reflexion of ice could still be 

seen, with great islands cutting the horizon, 

and paced the quarterdeck until he heard his 

steward's shrewish, barely respectful, complaining 

voice: 'Which the cook says ain't he 

ever coming, what with everything going cold, 

spoilt and ruined?' 

After dinner Jack, Pullings and Mr Bentley 

conferred about the jury-mizen; and now it 

was found just how grievous the loss of spars


in the recent blow had been. Though the ship 

was heavy with prize-goods such as ambergris 

and cloth of gold taken from the Alastor, with 

specie, mostly chests of silver, and with provisions 

of a quantity and above all a quality to 

make a flagship stare, she had scarcely a stick 

to call her own. 

'After endless lamentations and if only's', said 

Jack as he and Stephen were settling to their 

music, 'it was decided that by using the 

launch's mast and the rough-tree rail we could 

raise stump enough and gaff enough to 

spread a tolerable mizen. Enough, at all 

events, to sail with the wind ahead at a moderate 

pace without straining the rudder right 

off its pintles; and if it ain't elegant why, be 

damned to elegance.' 

'What are pintles?' 

'Those right-angled pieces in the front of the


rudder that hook into rings or braces as we 

say at the back of the stern-post so that the 

rudder can swing like a door on its hinges.' 

And when they had finished their piece, a 

gentle, meditative anonymous manuscript duet 

bought at an auction, he said, 'Lord, Stephen, 

when you remember how hot we were after 

those China ships so short a while ago, and 

how simple we should have looked if we had 

taken them, with that devilish great eighteenpounder 

frigate and the brig coming down on 

us with the weather-gage; and when you consider 

how happy we are now, to have come 

off with the loss of no more than our mizen, 

why, it makes you think.' 

'I do not know that I should go quite so far as 

that,' said Stephen. 

'Oh, very well, very well. You may be as satirical 

as you please; but I think we have come


out of it most uncommon well. I for one never 

supposed that tonight we could turn in and 

sleep in peace.' 

In peace they slept, profound peace, the 

peace of physically exhausted but easyminded 

and very well fed men, at least until 

the graveyard watch. On the moonlit deck 

Wilkins, on being relieved by Grainger at 

eight bells, said, 'Here you have her: reefed 

courses, foretopsail atrip; course north-east by 

north; Captain's orders in the binnacle 

drawer.' Then, in a conversational tone, 'You 

may have something of a ducking in an hour 

or so.' 

'Yes,' said Grainger, also looking into the 

north-east, where low dark clouds quite hid 

the sky, 'I dare say we shall. A drop of rain 

and this precious cold will wake me up. Dear 

Lord, how fast asleep I was, and warm!'


'I shall be the same in two minutes. It was a 

right hard day and night.' He paused with one 

foot on the ladder and said, 'Surely it is uncommon 

to see lightning in these latitudes?' 

'Oh, I have known it often enough,' said 

Grainger. 'Not so often as between the tropics, 

but pretty often. Only down here you don't 

linger on deck, so perhaps it seems much 

rarer.' 

Four bells, and it began to snow: the Surprise 

was keeping to her sober five knots. 

Six bells, and the wind strengthened, growing 

so changeable that once the ship was almost 

taken aback. Grainger close-reefed the foretopsail, 

and almost immediately afterwards the 

sky was covered entirely – no moon, no stars – 

and without a warning a violent rain, mixed 

with sleet, came hurtling down, so violent and 

so continued, with water jetting wide from the


leeward scuppers and the watch huddled under 

the break of the quarterdeck, that it was 

impossible to strike seven bells. 

Yet half-past three in the morning it was; 

Stephen's watch said so, and as it was telling 

the hour so Stephen, for the second time in his 

life and in the same ship, was woken by an 

enormous noise or combination of noises that 

he instantly recognized. The frigate had surely 

been struck by lightning. 

She had indeed. Her mainmast was utterly 

shattered, its fragments flung into the sea: its 

yards, however, lay athwartships, and like the 

foremast they were quite untouched. The ship 

had at once put before the wind, whatever the 

helmsmen might do; but as the snow and rain 

had calmed the sea she was reasonably 

steady, though unmanageable, and Stephen 

was soon called down to the sick-berth.


There were only three casualties: one man, a 

Knipperdolling named Isaac Rame, apparently 

uninjured apart from a black mark the size of 

a shilling over his heart, but completely, profoundly 

insensible – listening to its completely 

disordered beat Stephen shook his head – and 

two other foremast hands strangely burnt. 

These burns, though superficial, caused much 

distress; they were extensive, branching all 

over the men's backs in a close-set network of 

divergent lines, and it took Stephen, Padeen 

and Fabien so long to dress them that a pale 

daylight was showing upon the table when 

Stephen came into the cabin for breakfast. 

'Well, here's a pretty go,' cried Jack. 'Here's a 

pretty mess. Have a cup of coffee,' – pouring 

it. He sounded quite cheerful, as though the 

loss of the ship's mainmast were of slight importance; 

and so it was, compared with what 

followed. 'When we have finished breakfast –


pray help yourself to bacon and pass the dish 

– I will show you something more extraordinary 

by far. Our rudder has gone by the 

board.' 

'Oh, oh,' cried Stephen, aghast. 'Are we rudderless, 

so?' 

'I will not deceive you, brother: we are without 

a rudder. Do you remember asking me 

about pintles?' Stephen nodded, still much 

concerned. 'Well, it appears that at some 

point in our dreadful passage through the 

drift-ice a great floe must have lifted the pintles 

off the dumb-chalder and the braces, or 

most of them, and destroyed the wood-locks, 

so that it was hanging by little more than the 

tiller. We did not notice it, since we barely 

touched the helm sailing large; but when the 

lightning struck the rudder-head, shattering all 

down to the water-line, why, it dropped clean 

away.' He pointed to the shattered, blackened


rudder-head, now covered by a decent cloth. 

'Is there any help for such a state of affairs?' 

'Oh, I am sure we shall find something,' said 

Jack. 'May I trouble you for the marmalade? 

Capital marmalade, you must confess; though 

not quite as good as Sophie's.' 

Stephen had often heard Jack say, when life 

at sea grew more trying than the human frame 

could bear, 'that it was no use whining'; but he 

had never seen quite this degree of insouciance, 

or what he felt tempted to call irresponsible 

levity. How much was assumed as a captain's 

duty in a virtually hopeless situation? 

How much was Jack's natural reaction? He 

was not a man much given to strike attitudes. 

How hopeless was the situation in fact? 

Stephen might still confuse braces and pintles, 

dumb-chalders and sling-dogs, but he knew 

enough about the sea to feel that a ship far


and far from land with only one mast and no 

rudder at all was in a very sad way: furthermore 

his knowledge of sailing, though limited, 

did tell him that one mast and its sails in the 

very front of the ship could impel a rudderless 

vessel only directly before the wind, that the 

wind in these latitudes was nearly always westerly, 

and that there was no land ahead until 

they came right round the globe to Cape Horn 

again. 

He did not like to ask directly, but he put 

these points to various shipmates; to his distress 

they all, invariably, agreed with him. 'Ah, 

Doctor, things is wery bad,' said Joe Plaice. 'I 

have never heard anything so dreadful as the 

loss of a rudder five thousand miles from 

land,' said Mr Adams, 'for in our condition, 

South America, dead to windward, cannot be 

considered as land at all.' Yet at the same 

time he detected much of this same cheerful-


ness throughout the ship and something not 

very far from apparent unconcern, even in so 

atrabilious a soul as Killick. 'Have I been plying 

the ocean with a parcel of Stoics all this 

time?' he wondered. 'Or in my ignorance am I 

myself somewhat over-timid?' 

But then again in his frequent encounters with 

the foremast jacks – and his relations with 

them were of quite a different nature and in 

some ways much closer than those of any 

other officer – he had occasional insights that 

showed an entirely different aspect of the 

situation: of the moral situation at all events. 

The lower deck knew perfectly well that Vidal 

and his closest Knipperdolling connexions had 

smuggled Dutourd ashore; and they had become 

convinced that once ashore Dutourd 

had in some way informed upon the Doctor, 

putting his life in danger. And it was as though 

this treachery had brought bad luck on the


Surprise, however kindly Vidal had meant his 

action in the first place. Bad luck was a term 

that embraced a greal deal: other people 

might have spoken of a curse, a spell, or a divine 

resentment of impiety. But whatever it was 

called they had missed the China ships, and 

they had been near as a toucher sunk by the 

Americans, by the ice-islands and by the icefloes. 

And now the barky had been struck by 

lightning. But it was a Knipperdolling that had 

copped it, and once he went over the side the 

bad luck would be off the ship. 

He went the second day after the stroke. His 

shipmates attended with real concern – they 

had nothing against Isaac Rame himself, nothing 

whatsoever – but when the high southwestern 

swell closed over him without a splash 

on Tuesday morning they went back to their 

work with a particular satisfaction, one that informed 

their entire attitude.


This satisfaction continued throughout the 

week, or rather more. Stephen, who was often, 

almost invariably, in the way on deck 

when complex work was being carried out, 

wrote a commentary on it for Diana: Mariners: 

Consensus and Cohesion in certain States of 

Adversity, together with Some Remarks on Peruvian 

Cirripedes for the Royal Society. 

For the most part the weather was kind, the 

wind, though often boisterous, steady in the 

west; and although they had frequent rain and 

two blinding snow-storms there was no ice 

about and the temperature was nearly always 

above freezing by day. They were still without 

a rudder, but until one could be fashioned 

and above all hung, they had a steering oar 

over the quarter that allowed a point or two of 

northerly deviation from their steady eastward 

course. By the end of this time three sad little


poles rose from where the stately masts had 

been: the foremast, standing stark alone; its 

topmast and topgallant, both worked into the 

launch's mast, stood for the shattered main; 

and an even stranger assembly took the place 

of the mizen, spreading a pitiful fore-and-aft 

sail the size of the cabin tablecloth: yet it did 

give a certain balance. From the main and the 

fore yards hung broad but extraordinarily shallow 

square sails, so low that when Stephen 

was led on deck to see them he asked where 

they were intended to be hoisted. 'They are 

hoisted,' he was told, in a voice of strong displeasure. 

Forward still, and there was the unhurt 

bowsprit, carrying its spritsail and spritsail 

topsail; and, since the ship was very well 

found in bosun's and sailmaker's stores, she 

wore all the staysails that could possibly be 

managed. 'It is just like Bridie Colman's washing 

day, I do declare,' cried Stephen, in an-


other unfortunate attempt to please. 'Everything 

is within an easy hand's reach, so it is.' 

'This is an extraordinarily small piece of 

plum-duff,' he observed at dinner – Sunday 

dinner – in the cabin. 'I wish it may not be an 

ignoble stroke of revenge for my innocent 

words this morning about our harmless, meek, 

and bargelike appearance – innocent upon 

my word, and even, I thought, amusing – a 

mild pleasantry. But not at all: prim faces, wry 

looks, and now this meagre, despicable pudding. 

I had thought better of my shipmates.' 

'You mistake, brother,' said Jack. 'Mr Adams 

and I, in our joint character as purser, cast our 

accounts yesterday, reckoning every last firkin 

of oatmeal, every bin and locker in the breadroom, 

and dividing the whole, private stores 

not excepted, by the number of mouths 

aboard. That piece of pudding is your full ration, 

my poor Stephen.'


'Oh, indeed,' said Stephen, looking rather 

blank. 

'Yes. I have told the ship's company of this, 

and I have told them that unless or until we 

can fashion and ship a rudder...' 

'If you spend another two minutes up to your 

neck in water at this temperature, striving to 

do so, I will not answer for your life,' said 

Stephen. 'Last time it was nip and tuck, with 

hot blanket, fomentations, and half a pint of 

my best brandy.' 

'... unless we can ship a rudder that will enable 

us to haul up for St Helena, I intend to 

bear away for the Cape, edging north all the 

time with our steering oar, or perhaps some 

better gear. It is about three thousand five 

hundred miles, and although we have logged 

over a hundred for each of these last three 

days with this comic rig, as you so rightly call


it, and with this steady wind and beautiful 

eastward current, I have only reckoned on 

fifty, no more: one seventieth part of the distance. 

Fifty multiplied by seventy is three thousand 

five hundred, Stephen. And that succulent, 

luxurious pudding now in front of you is 

the seventieth part of all the duff that you will 

eat before we raise the Table Mountain.' 

'God love you, Jack, what things you tell me.' 

'Never despond, dear Stephen: remember 

that Bligh sailed four thousand miles in an 

open boat, with not a thousandth part of our 

stores. You will never despond, Stephen,' said 

Jack with a very slight emphasis. 'And I am 

sure you will never find any of the seamen do 

so, either.' 

'No,' said Stephen, stifling his recollections of 

the terrible following seas during the frequent 

storms in these latitudes, the perpetual danger


of being pooped, of broaching-to, and of being 

lost with all hands in a turmoil of foam. 

'No. I shall not despond.' 

'And Stephen, may I beg you not to be facetious 

when speaking of the barky? The people 

are surprisingly susceptible, if you know what I 

mean, about her appearance. And if ever you 

intend to be complimentary, you might well be 

advised just to throw up your hands and cry 

'Oh', or 'Superb', or 'I have never seen anything 

better', without being particular.' 

'The Doctor has been choked off for being a 

satyr,' said Killick to Grimble. 

'What's a satyr?' 

'What an ignorant cove you are to be sure, 

Art Grimble: just ignorant, is all. A satyr is a 

party that talks sarcastic. Choked off something 

cruel, he was; and his duff taken away 

and eaten before his eyes.'


Although the ship was wonderfully busy the 

news spread forward with its usual speed, and 

Stephen, making his way to the forecastle to 

watch albatrosses and the nondescript petrel 

that had been following the ship for some 

days, was greeted with particular kindness, 

brought a coil of soft manilla to sit upon, 

given a pair of belaying-pins to hold his telescope 

steady, and told about the birds that 

had been seen that day, including a numerous 

band of stinkpots flying south, an infallible 

sign of clear weather. This was all very much 

in line with what he had so often known at 

sea, and once more the evident good-will 

warmed his spirit. 

He thought of it with pleasure as he went to 

sleep; and its absence the next day, together 

with a want of that cheerfulness so usual on 

deck, struck him with all the more force when


he took the air in the forenoon after a trying, 

anxious time with the sick-berth, where neither 

burns nor foot were doing well, and with his 

collections, where a vile moth was breeding 

among the feathers and no pepper, no pepper 

left in the entire ship to discourage it. He arrived 

on deck not by climbing the companionladder 

to the quarterdeck in the usual way but 

by the fore-hatchway, having traversed the 

berth-deck to consider Dutourd's former cabin 

for the amputation in case his suspicion of an 

incipient pneumonia (that frequent sequel) 

should prove to be true. This brought him into 

the waist of the ship, filled with hands. They 

touched their hats and wished him good-day, 

but mechanically, with barely a smile, and returned 

to their low, anxious, intent conversations, 

frequently calling up in subdued voices 

to their companions thick along the starboard 

gangway.


He pushed through to the quarterdeck; and 

there were the same grave faces, grey with 

cold and discouragement, looking fixedly to 

windward, that is to say a little south of the 

ship's modest wake. 'What is afoot?' he murmured 

in Reade's ear. 

'Stand over here, sir,' said Reade, guiding 

him to the rail, 'and look out to windward.' 

A topsail schooner sailing large: and some 

miles beyond her a ship, also standing northnorth-east 

with topgallants and studdingsails 

abroad, a glorious sight; but one that gave no 

pleasure. 

'It is that brutal great American, come to snap 

us up,' said Reade. 

'Shame on him, after such a handsome message,' 

murmured Wedel. 

'Where is the Captain?' 

'Aloft, sir; but,' Reade whispered, 'he don't see


very well today. Both eyes water so in the 

cold.' 

'It is cold, sure,' said Stephen. He focused his 

best newly-cleaned glass, a superlative piece 

made for him by Dolland with a somewhat 

greater magnification than was usual in the 

Navy, for identifying birds; and presently he 

said, 'Tell me, Mr Reade: frigates have but one 

row of guns, have they not?' 

'Yes, sir. Just one,' said Reade patiently, holding 

up a single finger. 

'Well, this boat, or vessel, has two; as well as 

some each end.' 

'Nay, sir,' said Reade, shaking his head: then 

urgently, 'Please may I have a look? Oh sir,' 

he shrieked to Pullings at the taffrail, 'she ain't 

the Yankee. She's a two decker. A sixty-fourgun 

ship – the Doctor saw her.' 

'On deck, there,' came Jack's voice from on


high, cutting through the unworthy hubbub. 

'She's a sixty-four-gun ship, the old Berenice, I 

think – yes, the old Berenice – from the New 

South Wales station. Bery nicey too,' he 

added, with a private chuckle. 

'And that, much nearer to us,' said Stephen to 

the ecstatic Reade, 'is what we at sea term a 

schooner; but you need not be afraid. She 

carries little in the way of guns.' 

'A Baltimore clipper, sir, I believe,' said Mr 

Adams. 

'Indeed? I could have sworn she was a 

schooner, in spite of those rectangular sails in 

front.' 

'Certainly, sir. She is certainly a schooner in 

rig. The clipper part refers to her hull.' 

'Oh, she has a hull as well, has she? I was 

not aware. But pray tell me, Mr Adams, do 

you think you could find a little small bag of


pepper, just half a stone or so, in the Captain's 

storeroom itself?' 

'Sir, I have searched it through and through, 

in spite of that wicked Killick, and – see, she is 

rounding to.' 

The schooner checked her way and a tall 

young midshipman, standing on her low rail 

and holding a shroud, hailed, 'The ship ahoy 

– if ship you can be called, poor hulk [this in 

an undertone] – what ship is that?' 

'His Majesty's hired vessel Surprise,' replied 

Tom. 'Captain Pullings.' 

All along her side the schooner's hands stood 

grinning, staring, making offensive gestures: 

the Surprises looked back with stony hatred. 

'Come aboard with your papers,' said the 

midshipman. 

'Take that American contraption back to the 

Berenice,' roared Jack, half-way down the rat-


lines, 'and tell Captain Dundas with Captain 

Aubrey's compliments that he will wait upon 

him. D'ye hear me, there?' 

'Yes, sir,' replied the midshipman, and on either 

side of him the simpering stopped dead. 

'Aye aye, sir: Captain Aubrey's compliments... 

Sir,' he called across the widening lane, 'may I 

say Philip Aubrey is aboard?' 

Oh the mirth aboard the Surprise. Several of 

the younger men leapt into the rigging, ostentatiously 

slapping their buttocks at the schooner 

as she fled away, sailing unbelievably 

close to the wind. But more, many more of the 

hands gathered in the waist or on the forecastle, 

oblivious of the cold, revelling in their 

prize-money preserved, even as it were restored, 

laughing, clapping one another on the 

back. 

The ships drew near; nearer. 'I know perfectly


well what he is going to say,' murmured Jack 

to Stephen as they stood there in their boatcloaks 

by the gangway stanchions. 'He is going 

to call out, 'Well, Jack, whom the Lord 

loveth He chastizeth', and all his people will 

set up a silly cackle. There's Philip! Lord, how 

he has shot up.' Philip was Jack Aubrey's halfbrother, 

last seen as a youngster aboard Dundas's 

previous command. 

The Surprise, with her frail spars, could not 

easily get her launch over the side, and Dundas 

was sending his barge for them. It was 

lowered down in a seamanlike manner, and 

as it shoved off Captain Dundas, waving his 

hat from the Berenice's quarterdeck, called, 

'Well, Jack, whom the Lord loveth He 

chastizeth, ha, ha, ha! You must be a prime 

favourite up above. Heavens, you are in a 

horrid state.' 

'Captain Dundas, sir,' cried Stephen, 'Do you


think you could oblige me with a few pounds 

of fresh black pepper?' 

The reply was lost as Jack's bosun and his 

mates piped their Captain over the side: a 

howling repeated three minutes later as the 

Berenice piped him aboard. 

Stephen, Pullings and Philip withdrew from 

their splendid dinner quite early, Stephen carrying 

his pepper; and Jack said, 'Old Hen, 

what a pleasant young fellow you have made 

of Philip. I am so grateful.' 

'Not at all,' said Dundas. 'He might have 

been born to the sea. Cobbold says he will 

rate him master's mate in Hyperion, next year, 

if you would like it.' 

'I should like it very much indeed. It is time he 

was out of leading-strings; though yours I am 

sure were the kindest in the world.'


They sat comfortably together – very old 

friends and shipmates – sipping their port, 

pushing the decanter to and fro. Dundas told 

the servants to turn in, and presently he said, 

'You have had a rough time of it, Jack: and so 

I think has Maturin.' 

'Yes, I have: pretty rough. And he has, too. 

Then again we have both been away a terrible 

long time, you know, with very little news, and 

that adds to the ordinary battering of a distant 

voyage: not that it was so ordinary on this occasion. 

Tell me, how are things at home?' 

'I was at Ashgrove last July, and they were all 

blooming – Sophie in splendid looks – her 

mother is living there with a friend, a Mrs Morris 

– children very well indeed, and the girls so 

pretty, modest and kind. Well, fairly modest, 

and very kind. I did not see Diana, though her 

horses do famously: she was in Ireland during 

my short leave. But when I called I did see


Clarissa Oakes, poor young Oakes's widow, 

who lives there: what a fine young woman she 

is.' He paused again; then brightened and 

went on, 'But tell me, as far as you can, because 

Melville let me understand that there 

was something confidential about your voyage' 

– Melville, or more formally Lord Melville, 

was Heneage Dundas's elder brother and First 

Lord of the Admiralty – 'as far as you properly 

can, then, how your enterprise went.' 

'Well, I gathered that the first part, in the East 

Indies, went well for Stephen – at least the 

French were discomforted – but I flung the 

Diane on a reef in the South China Sea, a total 

loss. And then in this second bout, now 

ending, thanks be, we did take a fair number 

of prizes to begin with and we destroyed a 

truly odious pirate; but then I contrived to lose 

three American China ships: Heavens, such 

wealth! It is true they were protected by a brig


and a thirty-eight-gun frigate that nearly destroyed 

us. Oh, Hen, such wicked ice south of 

Diego Ramírez: and north, for that matter. We 

escaped, true enough; but even so I cannot 

call the enterprise anything but a failure. And I 

am very much afraid that Stephen was betrayed, 

that his plan did not come to good, 

and that it went right to his heart.' 

'I will fetch some brandy,' said Heneage. 

They drank it staring at the embers in the 

hanging stove; and when they had settled 

what masts and spars the Berenice could give 

the Surprise, with a long aside about Dundas's 

tender the Baltimore clipper, picked up perfect 

but empty – not a soul, not a scrap of paper – 

in the south Pacific, and her extraordinary sailing 

qualities, Jack said, 'No. Harking back to 

this voyage, I think it was a failure upon the 

whole, and a costly failure; but,' he said 

laughing with joy at the thought, 'I am so


happy to be homeward-bound, and I am so 

happy, so very happy, to be alive.' 

THE END

16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

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