O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 07 - The Surgeon's Mate

The Surgeon's Mate

CHAPTER ONE

The long harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia on a long, long summer's day, and two frigates

gliding in on the tide of flood under their topsails alone: the first, since she had belonged to

the United States navy until a few days before, wore the Stars and Stripes under a white

ensign; the second showed no more than her own shabby colours, for she was HMS

Shannon, the winner in that short and bloody action with the Chesapeake,

The Shannon's crew already had some notion of the welcome they should receive,

because news of the victory had spread and dories, yachts, privateers' boats and small

craft of all kinds had met them beyond the distant harbour's mouth, sailing along with

them, waving their hats and bawling out 'Bravo - huzzay - well done, Shannon - huzzay,

huzzay!' The Shannons took no great notice of the civilians, apart from a distant

acknowledgement, a discreet wave from the watch below; but the small craft took great

notice of them, and although the casual observer saw little to exclaim at in the Shannon

herself, with most of her rigging new set up, a fresh suit of sails bent to her yards, and her

paintwork at least as trim as it was when she set out from this same port some weeks ago,

the more knowing eye of the privateersmen saw the deep wounds in her bowsprit and her

masts, the mizen fished with capstan-bars, the shot still lodged in her side and the plugs

where they had gone through: yet even the most unobservant could not miss the gaping

void in the Chesapeake's stern and larboard quarter, where the Shannon's full starboard

broadside had raked her again and again, sending some five hundredweight of iron

hurtling clean through her length at every blast. They did not of course see the blood of

that savage conflict, the blood that had poured thick from the scuppers, for the Shannons

had cleaned both ships and they had priddied the decks as far as they could; but even so,

from the state of the masts and the yards and of the Chesapeake'?, hull, any man who

had seen action could imagine the slaughter-house look of the ships when the battle

ended.

The Shannons, then, knew how they would be received, and the watch below had

already contrived to slip into their best shore-going rig of glazed broad-brimmed hats with

Shannon embroidered on the ribbon, bright blue jackets with brass buttons, loose white

trousers with ribbons in the seams, and very small shining black pumps; but even so they

were astonished by the prodigious volume of sound that met them as they neared the

wharves -by the overlapping waves of cheers and then by the even louder, even more

highly-valued, exactly-ordered cheering as they passed the men-of-war that lay in the

harbour, each one with her yards and rigging manned all over, roaring in unison 'Shannon,

huzzay, huzzay, huzzay!' so as to make the air and the sea under it tremble while the

frigate slipped along on the height of the tide to pick up her familiar moorings. The whole

of Halifax had turned out to greet them and their victory, the first victory in a war that had

started so disastrously for the Royal Navy, with three proud frigates taken one after

another by the Americans in single-ship actions, to say nothing of the smaller vessels:

obviously the sailors were the most ecstatic - and their bitter pain at all these defeats

could be measured by the hoarse enormity of their present joy - but the thousands and

thousands of redcoats and civilians were delighted too, and young Mr Wallis, in command

of the Shannon, could scarcely be heard when he gave the order to clew up.

Yet although the Shannons were pleased and astonished, they remained for the most

part grave, gravely pleased: their deeply-respected captain lay between life and death in

his cabin; they had buried their first lieutenant and twenty-two of their shipmates; and the

sickbay, overflowing into the berth-deck, held fifty-nine wounded, many of them very near

their end and some of them the most popular men in the ship.

When the port-admiral came up the side, therefore, he saw a sparse crew, togged to the

nines but with a restraint upon them, and a thinly-peopled quarterdeck -few officers to

greet him. 'Well done, by God,' he cried above the wail of bosun's calls piping him aboard,

'well done, the Shannon." And then, 'Where is Captain Broke?'

'Below, sir,' said Mr Wallis. 'Wounded, I regret to say. Very badly wounded in the head.

He is barely conscious.'

'Oh, I am sorry for that. Damme, I am sorry for that. Is he very bad? The head, you say?

Are his intellects in trim - does he know about his famous victory?'

'Yes, sir, he does. I believe that is what keeps him going.'

'What does the surgeon say? Can he be seen?' 'They would not let me in this morning,

sir, but I will send below and ask how he does.'

'Aye, do,' said the Admiral. A pause. 'Where is Mr Watt?' - referring to the first lieutenant,

once a midshipman of his.

'Dead, sir,' said Wallis.

'Dead,' said the Admiral, looking down. 'I am most heartily sorry for it - a fine seamanlike

officer. Did you suffer a great deal, Mr Falkiner?'

'We lost twenty-three killed and fifty-nine wounded, sir, a quarter of our people: but

Chesapeake had above sixty killed and ninety wounded. Her captain died aboard us on

Wednesday. May I say, sir,' he added in a low voice, 'that my name is Wallis? Mr Falkiner

is in command of the prize.'

'Just so, just so,' said the Admiral. 'A bloody business, Mr Wallis, a cruel business: but

worth it. Yes, by God, it was worth it.' His eye ran along the clean, orderly, though scarred

deck, the boats, two of them already repaired, up to the rigging, and lingered for a moment

on the fished mizen. 'So you and Falkiner and what hands you had left brought them both

in between you. You have done very well indeed, Mr Wallis, you and your shipmates. Now

just give me a brief, informal account of the action: you shall put it in writing presently, if

Captain Broke don't recover in time for the dispatch; but for the moment I should like to

hear it from your own mouth.'

'Well, sir,' began Wallis, and then paused. He could fight extremely well, but he was no

orator; the Admiral's rank oppressed him, so did the presence of an audience that

included the only surviving American officer fit to stand - though even he was wounded.

He brought out a lame, disjointed tale, but the Admiral listened to it with a glowing, visible

delight, for with what he had heard before it fell into perfect shape, even more perfect than

the rumours that had already reached him. What Wallis said confirmed all that he had

heard: Broke, finding the Chesapeake alone in Boston harbour, had sent his consorts

away, challenging her captain to come out and try the issue in the open sea. The

Chesapeake had indeed come out in the most handsome., gallant manner: they had

fought their battle fair and square, evenly matched, broadside to broadside, with no

manoeuvring; and having swept the Chesapeake's quarterdeck clear, killing or wounding

almost all her officers in the first few moments, the Shannon had raked her, boarded her,

and carried her. 'And it was just fifteen minutes, sir, from the first gun to the last.'

'Fifteen minutes, by God! That I did not know,' said the Admiral; and after a few more

questions he clapped his hands behind his back and paced up and down, silently

digesting his satisfaction.

His eye caught a tall figure in a post-captain's uniform standing by the Marine officers

and he cried, 'Aubrey! Why, it must be Aubrey, upon my life!' He stepped forward with his

hand outstretched: Captain Aubrey whipped his hat under his left arm, edged his right

hand from its sling, and gave the Admiral's as hearty a shake as he could. 'I was sure I

could not mistake that yellow hair,' said the Admiral, 'though it must be years ... a

wounded arm? I knew you was in Boston, but how come you here?"

'I escaped, sir,' said Jack Aubrey.

'Well done,' cried the Admiral again. 'So you were aboard for this noble victory! That was

worth an arm or two, by God. Give you joy with all my heart. Lord, how I wish I had been

with you. But I am most damnably grieved for poor dear Watt, and for Broke. I must have

a word with him, if the surgeon ... Is your arm bad?' - nodding towards the sling.

'It was only a musket-ball in the Java action, sir. But here are the doctors, sir, if you wish

to speak to them.'

'Mr Fox, how d'ye do?' said the Admiral, turning to the Shannon's surgeon, who had just

come up the main hatchway with a companion, both of them in their working clothes. 'And

how is your patient? Is he fit to receive a visit, a short visit'

'Well, sir,' said Mr Fox with a doubtful shaking of his head, 'we dread any excitement or

mental exertion at this stage. Do you not agree, colleague?'

His colleague, a small sallow man in a blood-stained black coat, dirty linen and an ill-

fitting wig, said, 'Of course, of course,' in a somewhat impatient tone. 'No visits can

possibly be allowed until the draught has had its effect,' and he was moving away without

another word when Captain Aubrey took him by the elbow and said in a private voice,

'Hold hard, Stephen: this is the Admiral, you know.'

Stephen looked at Aubrey with his strange pale eyes, red-rimmed now after days and

nights of almost incessant exertion, and said, 'Listen now, Jack, will you? I have an

amputation on my hands, and I would not pause to chat with the Archangel Gabriel

himself. I have only stepped up to fetch my small retractor from the cabin. And tell that

man not to talk so loud.' With this he walked off, leaving nervous smiles behind him,

anxious looks directed at the Admiral: but the great man did not seem at all put out. He

gazed about the ship and over the water at the Chesapeake and his deep delight showed

clear beneath his immediate concern for the Shannon's captain and her missing officers

and men. He asked Wallis for the muster-roll of the prisoners of war, and while it was

being fetched he stood by an improvized hood over the cabin skylight with Jack Aubrey

and said, 'I know I have seen that face before; but I cannot put a name to it.' 'He is Dr - '

began Captain Aubrey. 'Stay. Stay. I have it. Saturnin - that's the man. Admiral Bowes and

I were calling at the palace to enquire after the Duke, and he came out and told us how he

did. Saturnin: I knew I should get it.'

'The very same man, sir. Stephen Maturin was called in to doctor Prince William, and I

believe he saved him when all else had failed. A prodigious physician, sir, and my

particular friend: we have sailed together since the year two. But I am afraid he is not quite

used to the ways of the service yet, and he sometimes gives offence without intending it.'

'Why, he is no great respecter of persons, to be sure; but I am not at all offended. I don't

take myself for God the Father, you know, Aubrey, although I have my flag; and anyhow, it

would take a great deal to put me out of humour on such a day - Lord, Aubrey, such a

victory! Besides, he must be a great man in the physical line, to be called in to the Duke.

How I wish he may save poor Broke. Your servant, ma'am,' he cried, gazing with

respectful admiration at an extraordinarily elegant young woman who suddenly appeared

from the temporary hood, carrying a basin and followed by a weary, blood-spattered

surgeon's assistant. She was pale, but in these surroundings her pallor suited her: it gave

her a quite remarkable distinction.

'Diana,' said Captain Aubrey, 'allow me to name Admiral Colpoys: my cousin Mrs Villiers.

Mrs Villiers was in Boston, sir, and she escaped with Maturin and me.'

'Your most humble, devoted, ma'am,' said the Admiral, bowing. 'How I envy you, having

been in such a brilliant action.'

Diana put down her basin, curtsied, and replied, 'Oh, sir, I was kept below stairs all the

time. But how I wish,' she said with a fine flash of her eye, 'how I wish I had been a man,

to board with the rest of them.'

'I am sure you would have struck them dead, ma'am,' said the Admiral. 'But now you are

here, you must take up your quarters with us. Lady Harriet will be delighted. Here is my

barge, at your pleasure, if you choose to go ashore this minute."

'You are very good, Admiral,' said Diana, 'and I should be most happy to wait on Lady

Harriet, but what I am about will keep me some hours yet.'

'I honour you for it, ma'am,' said the Admiral, for a glance at the basin showed the nature

of her occupation. 'But the moment you are ready, you must come up to the house.

Aubrey, the moment Mrs Villiers is ready, you are to bring her up to the house.' His

beaming smile faded as a high quavering shriek, almost inhuman in its agony, came up

from the sickbay, piercing the noise of cheering like a knife: but he had seen a great deal

of action - he knew the price there was to pay - and with little less good humour he added,

'That is an order, Aubrey, d'ye hear me?' Then, turning to the young lieutenant he said,

'Now Mr Wallis, let us go to our business.'

The hours had passed: Captain Broke had been carried to the Commissioner's house

and his wounded shipmates to the hospital, where those who were not out of their minds

with pain lay peacefully enough by the wounded Chesapeakes, sometimes exchanging

quids of tobacco and smuggled rum; the American prisoners of war had been taken out of

their ship, the few surviving officers paroled and the men sent to the barracks; and the

most wretchedly miserable of all, the British deserters captured in the Chesapeake, had

been taken to prison, with no likelihood of leaving it except for a journey to the gallows. At

present the cruellest face of war was no longer to be seen: joy and lively anticipation

began to overcome thoughtfulness and grief in the frigate as neighbouring captains sent

over parties of volunteers, men enough to provide a harbour-watch so that the Shannons

might have a run ashore; and the newcomers' gaiety, combining with the continuing

shouts and yells from the wharves, made the younger liberty-men laugh aloud as they

stood, treading on one another's toes on the gangway, while their companions, moving

carefully not to get tar on their gleaming ducks, hoisted out the boats.

'Cousin Diana,' said Jack Aubrey, 'should you like to go ashore? I will hail Tenedos for

her captain's gig.'

'Thank you, Jack,' said she, 'but I had rather wait for Stephen. He will not be long." She

was sitting on a small green brass-studded trunk, the only thing she had brought with her

in their hurried flight from Boston, and she was gazing out at Halifax over a shattered nine-

pounder gun. Jack stood by he,r and gazed too, one foot on the carriage; but he gazed

with no more than the shallowest surface of his attention, while the rest of his mind floated

free. His whole being was suffused with deep happiness, for although this victory was

none of his, he was a sea-officer through and through, wholly identified with the Royal

Navy from his childhood, and the successive defeats of the last year had weighed upon

him so that he had been hardly able to bear it. Now the burden was gone: the two ships

had met in equal fight; the Royal Navy had won; the universe was restored to its true

foundations; the stars had resumed their natural march; and as soon as he reached

England there was every likelihood that he should have a command, the Acasta of forty

guns, that would help to make their march' more natural still. Then again, as soon as he

was ashore he would run to the post for his letters: he had not heard from Sophie, his wife

and Diana's first cousin, all the time he had been a prisoner of war in Boston, and he

longed to hear from her, longed to hear how the children did, longed to hear of his horses,

the garden, the house ... yet beneath all this there was a point, and more than a point, of

anxiety. Although he was an unusually rich commander, an officer who had made more

prize-money than most captains of his seniority -more indeed than many admirals - he had

left his affairs in a highly complicated state, and their unravelling depended upon the

honesty of a man whom neither Sophie nor his friend Maturin trusted at all. This man, a Mr

Kimber, had promised Jack that the disused lead-mines on his land could be made to

produce not only more lead but also a surprising amount of silver by a process known to

Mr Kimber alone, thereby yielding a very handsome return indeed upon the initial outlay;

yet the last letters that Captain Aubrey had ever received from his wife, far away in the

East Indies, before he was captured by the Americans on his return voyage to England,

had spoken not of yield, not of profit, but of obscure unauthorized doings on the part of

Kimber, of very heavy new investments in roads, mining-equipment, a steam-engine,

deep-sunk shafts . . . He longed to have this clarified; and he was tolerably confident that

it would be clarified, for whereas Sophie and Stephen Maturin understood nothing of

business, Jack had based his opinion upon solid facts and figures, not mere intuition: in

any case, he had a far greater knowledge of the world than either of them. But more than

that he longed to hear of his children, his twin daughters and his little son: George would

be talking by now, and the want of news had been one of the hardest things to bear during

his captivity; for not a single letter had come through. And most of all he wanted to see

Sophie's hand and to hear her voice at one remove: her last letters, dated before the

American war, had reached him in Java and he had read them until they cracked at the

folds, had read them again and again until they, with almost all his other possessions, had

been lost at sea. Since then, no word. From a hundred and ten degrees of east longitude

to sixty degrees west, almost half the world, and never a word. It was the sailor's lot, he

knew, with the packets and all other forms of transport so uncertain, but even so he had

felt ill-used at times.

Ill-used by fate in general rather than by Sophie. Their marriage, firmly rooted in very

deep affection and mutual respect, was far better than most; and although one of its

aspects was not altogether satisfactory for a man of Jack Aubrey's strong animal spirits,

and although it might be said that Sophie was somewhat possessive, somewhat given to

jealousy, she was nevertheless an integral part of his being. She was no more faultless

than he was himself, and indeed there were moments when he found his own faults easier

to excuse than hers; but all this was quite forgotten as his inner eye contemplated the

parcel of letters that he would find waiting for him over the smooth water there in Halifax.

'Tell me, Jack,' said Diana, 'did Sophie have a hard time of it, with her last baby?'

'Hey?' cried Jack, brought back from a great way off. 'A hard time of it with George? I

hope not, by - I hope not, indeed, She did not mention it at all. I was in Mauritius at the

time. But I believe it can be very bad.'

'So they tell me,' said Diana: and after a pause, 'Here is Stephen.'

A few minutes later the boat was alongside, and they made their farewells to the

Shannon rather than her people, for they would all meet again on shore in the course of

the festivities that would follow the victory - the Admiral had already spoken of a ball.

Diana refused Wallis's offer of a bosun's chair and ran down after Stephen as lithe and

nimble as a boy, while the boat's crew stared woodenly out into the offing, lest they should

see her legs; but she did call out to beg that those on deck might take great care of her

trunk. 'It is my all, you know, my little all,' she said, smiling up into Mr Wallis's enchanted

face. They made a curious group there in the stern-sheets as the boat pulled for the

shore, a group bound together by strong, intricate relationships; for not only had the two

men competed for her liking in the past so that it had very nearly broken their friendship,

but Diana had been the great love of Stephen's life, his prime illusion. She had thrown him

over in India in favour of an American, a very wealthy man called Johnson, whose

company she found increasingly unpleasant on their arrival in the States and, after the

declaration of war, quite intolerable. It was when Maturin reached Boston as a prisoner of

war that they came together again and that he found that although he still admired her

spirit and beauty, it was as though his heart were numb. What changes in her or in himself

had brought this about he could not tell for sure; but he did know that unless his heart

could feel again the mainspring of his life was gone. However, they had escaped together,

reaching the Shannon in a boat; and they were engaged to be married, an engagement

that Stephen felt to be her due, if only as a means of recovering her nationality, and one

that to his astonishment she seemed to welcome, although up until this time he had

thought her the most intuitively perceptive woman of his acquaintance. Indeed, but for the

battle they would already have been man and wife by the law of England if not by that of

the Catholic church (for Maturin was a Papist), since Philip Broke had been about to

exercise his powers as a captain and marry them at sea, and Diana would have been a

British subject once more, instead of a paper American.

Yet in spite of these currents of feeling beneath the surface they talked very cheerfully

and calmly all the way to the landing-place and up to the Admiral's house, where they

parted like old friends, Jack to report to the Commissioner and then to see about his post

and their lodgings, and Stephen to an unnamed destination with a sailcloth parcel under

his arm, his only baggage, while Diana remained with the short-legged, good-natured

Lady Harriet Colpoys.

Stephen did not name his destination, but if they had reflected neither of his

companions would have had much difficulty in guessing it. In the course of their long

service together it had necessarily come to Captain Aubrey's knowledge that although Dr

Maturin was certainly an eminent medical man who chose to sail as a ship's surgeon for

the opportunities of making discoveries in natural philosophy (his chief passion, second

only to the overthrow of Buonaparte), he was also one of the Admiralty's most prized

intelligence agents; while immediately before their escape Diana had seen him remove

the papers that his parcel contained from the rooms that she and Mr Johnson occupied in

Boston, explaining his action by the statement that they would interest an intelligence

officer he happened to know in Halifax. ^Stephen was perfectly aware of this, but the long-

established habit, the second nature of extreme discretion to which he owed his

continuing existence made him non-committal in all circumstances; it also caused him to

take a roundabout way to the office of his correspondent, looking in shop windows and

taking full advantage of those that showed the street behind him. It was an automatic

precaution, but here it was an unusually necessary one, for as he knew better than any

man in Halifax there were several American agents in the town; and Johnson's fury at

being robbed of both his mistress and his papers would urge him to make extraordinary

efforts in the way of revenge.

However, he reached the office unfollowed, with an easy mind, and sent in his name.

Major Beck, the Marine in charge of intelligence on the North American station, received

him at once. They had not met before and Beck looked at him with lively curiosity: Dr

Maturin had a great reputation in the department as one of the few wholly voluntary

agents who 'were also wholly effective, wholly professional; and although Maturin's mixed

Irish-Catalan parentage meant that he was primarily an expert on Catalan affairs, Beck

knew that the Doctor had recently accomplished the feat of decimating the ranks of the

French service by means of false, compromising information conveyed to Paris in all good

faith by the Americans. Seeing that this concerned his own field, Beck was officially

acquainted with it; but he had also heard vaguer, less official accounts of other equally

remarkable coups in Spain and France, and he found that he was most illogically

disappointed by the meagre, shabby, undistinguished man who -sat on the other side of

the desk, slowly undoing a sailcloth parcel. Against all reason Beck had expected a more

heroic figure: certainly not one who wore blue spectacles against the sun.

Stephen's reflexions were equally unflattering. He observed that Beck was an obscurely

misshapen fellow with watery goggling eyes, spare sandy hair, no chin, a prominent

Adam's apple, and, in spite of an intelligent forehead, the settled look of a man who fitted

nowhere. 'Are we all, always, so distorted?' he wondered, thinking of some of his other

colleagues.

They talked for a while about the victory, Beck speaking with an enthusiasm that brought

colour to his unhealthy thin-skinned yellow face and Stephen steadily disclaiming any

particular knowledge of the action: he had been below from the first gun to the last: he

knew nothing of the evolutions, nor was he able to speak to the number of British

deserters serving in the American ship or of the means employed to seduce them. Beck

seemed disappointed.

'I received your warning about the Frenchmen in Boston,' said Stephen, struggling with a

knot, 'and I thank you for it. I was able to meet them with a mind prepared.'

'I trust there was no unpleasantness, sir? Durand is said to be a most unscrupulous,

determined officer.'

Tontet-Canet was worse: a busy, troublesome fellow that gave me real uneasiness for a

while. But, however, I clapped a stopper over his capers.' Dr Maturin was proud of his

nautical expressions: sometimes he got them right, but right or wrong he always brought

them out with a slight emphasis of satisfaction, much as others might utter a particularly

apt Greek or Latin quotation. 'And brought him up with a round stern,' he added. 'Would

you have a knife, at all? This string is really not worth the saving.'

'How did you do that, sir?' asked Beck, passing a pair of scissors.

'I cut his throat,' said Maturin, shearing through the string. Major Beck was used to

bloodshed in open and in clandestine war, but his visitor's everyday, unemphatic tone

struck a chill to his heart, the more so as Maturin happened to take off his spectacles at

this moment, glancing at Beck with his expressionless pale eyes, the only remarkable

thing about him.

'Now, sir,' said Stephen, the documents unwrapped at last, 'you are no doubt acquainted

with Mr Harry Johnson's role in American intelligence?'

'Oh yes, indeed.' Beck could not be unaware of his chief opponent's activities in Canada:

from the first days of his appointment he had been struggling against Johnson's well-

organized, well-supplied network of agents.

'Very well. These are papers that I took from his desk and strong-box in Boston. The

Frenchmen were consulting them when I put an end to their machinations."He laid them

one by. one on the major's desk: a list of American agents in Canada and the West Indies,

with comments; ciphers to be used on various occasions; letters to the Secretary of State

containing a detailed account of the past and present relationships between the French

and American intelligence services; remarks on his French colleagues' characters,

abilities, and intentions; projects for future operations; a full appreciation of the British

position on the Great Lakes . . .

By the time the last document took its place on the desk Dr Maturin had reached and

surpassed the heroic stature expected of him. Major Beck gazed over the heap of papers

with deep respect, with something not far removed from awe. 'It is the completest thing,'

he said, 'the completest thing that ever I heard tell of. A clean sweep, by God! This first list

alone will keep a firing-squad busy for weeks. I must digest the whole mass. These will be

my bedside companions for many a night.'

'Not these documents themselves, sir, if you will allow me. Sir Joseph and~his

cryptographers must have them - ' the Major bowed at Sir Joseph's name, ' - and I

propose carrying the greater part to London by the first ship that offers. Copies, by all

means, although that raises certain problems too, as you know very well. However, before

we discuss the copying or indeed anything else, I have an observation to make: an

observation and a request. Have you heard of Mrs Villiers?'

'Diana Villiers, Johnson's mistress, a renegade Englishwoman?"

'No, sir,' said Stephen, with a cold, unwinking look. 'No, sir. Mrs Villiers was not

Johnson's mistress: she merely accepted his protection in a foreign land. Nor is she in any

conceivable way a renegade. Not only did they disagree most bitterly when he attempted

to enlist her in the war against her own country, but it was owing to her that I came into

possession of these documents. I should be sorry to hear her name used lightly.'

'Yet, sir,' said Beck after a moment's hesitation, 'and I speak under correction, without

intending the least disrespect to the lady, it appears that she took out papers of

naturalization in the States.'

'That was a thoughtless act, one that she regarded as a trifling formality without the least

real effect upon her natural allegiance. It was very strongly represented to her, that the

O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 07 - The Surgeon's Mate

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