O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 01 - Master & Commander

Master & Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

CHAPTER ONE

The music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared

octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet. The

players, Italians pinned against the far wall by rows and rows of little round gilt chairs,

were playing with passionate conviction as they mounted towards the penultimate

crescendo, towards the tremendous pause and the deep, liberating final chord. And on the

little gilt chairs at least some of the audience were following the rise with an equal

intensity: there were two in the third row, on the left-hand side; and they happened to be

sitting next to one another. The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty

and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat, leaving only a streak of gilt wood to be seen

here and there. He was wearing his best uniform - the white-lapelled blue coat, white

waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal

of the Nile in his buttonhole -and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the

time, while his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face

if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin. The high

note came, the pause, the resolution; and with the resolution the sailor's fist swept firmly

down upon his knee. He leant back in his chair, extinguishing it entirely, sighed happily

and turned towards his neighbour with a smile. The words 'Very finely played, sir, I

believe' were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and

indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, 'If you really must beat the measure, sir, let

me entreat you to do so in time,

and not half a beat ahead.'

Jack Aubrey's face instantly changed from friendly ingenuous communicative pleasure to

an expression of somewhat baffled hostility: he could not but acknowledge that he had

been beating the time; and although he had certainly done so with perfect accuracy, in

itself the thing was wrong. His colour mounted; he fixed his neighbour's pale eye for a

moment, said, 'I trust. . . ',and the opening notes of the slow movement cut him short.

The ruminative 'cello uttered two phrases of its own and then began a dialogue with the

viola. Only part of Jack's mind paid attention, for the rest of it was anchored to the man at

his side. A covert glance showed that he was a small, dark, white-faced creature in a rusty

black coat - a civilian. It was difficult to tell his age, for not only had he that kind of face

that does not give anything away, but he was wearing a wig, a grizzled wig, apparently

made of wire, and quite devoid of powder: he might have been anything between twenty

and sixty. 'About my own age, in fact, however,' thought Jack. 'The ill-looking son of a

bitch, to give himself such airs.' With this almost the whole of his attention went back into

the music; he found his place in the pattern and followed it through its convolutions and

quite charming arabesques to its satisfying, logical conclusion. He did not think of his

neighbour again until the end of the movement, and then he avoided looking in his

direction.

The minuet set Jack's head wagging with its insistent beat, but he was wholly unconscious

of it; and when he felt his hand stirring on his breeches and threatening to take to the air

he thrust it under the crook of his knee. It was a witty, agreeable minuet, no more; but it

was succeeded by a curiously difficult, almost harsh last movement, a piece that seemed

to be on the edge of saying something of the very greatest importance. The volume of

sound died away to the single whispering of a fiddle, and the steady hum of low

conversation that had never stopped at the back

of the room threatened to drown it: a soldier exploded in a stifled guffaw and Jack looked

angrily round. Then the rest of the quartet joined the fiddle and all of them worked back to

the point from which the statement might arise: it was essential to get straight back into

the current, so as the 'cello came in with its predictable and necessary contribution of

pom, pom-pom-pom, poom, Jack's chin sank

upon his breast and in unison with the 'cello he went pom, pom-pom-pom, poom. An

elbow drove into his ribs and the sound shshsh hissed in his ear. He found that his hand

was high in the air, beating time; he lowered it, clenched his mouth shut and looked down

at his feet until the music was over. He heard the noble conclusion and recognized that it

was far beyond the straightforward winding-up that he had foreseen, but he could take no

pleasure in it. In the applause and general din his neighbour looked at him, not so much

with defiance as with total, heart-felt disapprobation: they did not speak, but sat in rigid

awareness of one another while Mrs Harte, the commandant's wife, went through a long

and technically difficult piece on her harp. Jack Aubrey looked out of the long, elegant

windows into the night: Saturn was rising in the south-south-east, a glowing ball in the

Minorcan sky. A nudge, a thrust of that kind, so vicious and deliberate, was very like a

blow. Neither his personal temper nor his professional code could patiently suffer an

affront: and what affront was graver than a blow?

As it could not for the moment find any outward expression, his anger took on the form of

melancholy: he thought of his shipless state, of half and whole promises made to him and

broken, and of the many schemes he had built up on visionary foundations. He owed his

prize-agent, his man of business, a hundred and twenty pounds; and its interest of fifteen

per cent was about to fall due; and his pay was five pounds twelve shillings a month. He

thought of men he knew, junior to him but with better luck or better interest, who were now

lieutenants in command of brigs or cutters, or

who had even been promoted master and commander: and all of them snapping up

trabacaloes in the Adriatic, tartans in the Gulf Of Lions, xebecs and settees along the

whole of the Spanish coast. Glory, professional advancement, prize-money.

The storm of applause told him that the performance was over, and he beat his palms

industriously, stretching his mouth into an expression of rapturous delight. Molly Harte

curtseyed and smiled, caught his eye and smiled again; he clapped louder; but she saw

that he was either not pleased or that he had not been attending, and her pleasure was

sensibly diminished. However, she continued to acknowledge the compliments of her

audience with a radiant smile, looking very well in pale blue satin and a great double rope

of pearls - pearls from the Santa Brigida.

Jack Aubrey and his neighbour in the rusty black coat stood up at the same time, and they

looked at one another:

Jack let his face return to its expression of cold dislike

- the dying remnants of his artificial rapture were peculiarly disagreeable, as they faded -

and in a low voice he said, 'My name is Aubrey, sir: I am staying at the Crown.'

'Mine, sir, is Maturin. I am to be found any morning at Joselito's coffee-house. May I beg

you to stand aside?'

For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat

the white-faced man down with it; but he gave way with a tolerable show of civility

- he had no choice, unless he was to be run into - and shortly afterwards he worked

through the crowd of tight-packed blue or red coats with the occasional civilian black as far

as the circle round Mrs Harte, called out 'Charming

- capital - beautifully played' over heads three deep, waved his hand and left the room. As

he went through the hail he exchanged greetings with two other sea-officers, one of them

a former messmate in the gun-room of the Agamemnon,

who said, 'You are looking very hipped, Jack,' and with a tall midshipman, stiff with the

sense of occasion and the rigour of his starched, frilled shirt, who had been a youngster in

his watch in the Thunderer; and lastly he bowed to the commandant's secretary, who

returned his bow with a smile, raised eyebrows and a very significant look.

'I wonder what that infamous brute has been up to now,' thought Jack, walking down

towards the harbour. As he walked memories of the secretary's duplicity and of his own

ignoble truckling to that influential personage came into his mind. A beautiful, newly-

coppered, newly-captured little French privateer had been virtually promised to him:

the secretary's brother had appeared from Gibraltar - adieu, kiss my hand to that

command. 'Kiss my arse,' said Jack aloud, remembering the politic tameness with which

he had received the news, together with the secretary's renewed professions of good will

and of unspecified good offices to be performed in the future. Then he remembered his

own conduct that evening, particularly his withdrawing to let the small man walk by, and

his inability to find any remark, any piece of repartee that would have been both crushing

and well clear of boorishness. He was profoundly dissatisfied with himself, and with the

man in the black coat, and with the service. And with the velvet softness of the April night,

and the choir of nightingales in the orange-trees, and the host of stars hanging so low as

almost to touch the palms.

The Crown, where Jack was staying, had a certain resemblance to its famous namesake

in Portsmouth: it had the same immense gilt and scarlet sign hanging up outside, a relic of

former British occupations, and the house had been built about 1750 in the purest English

taste, with no concessions whatever to the Mediterranean except for the tiles; but there

the likeness stopped. The landlord was from Gibraltar and the staff was Spanish, or rather

Minorcan; the place smelt of olive oil, sardines and wine;

and there was not the least possibility of a Bakewell tart, an Eccles cake or even a decent

suet pudding. Yet, on the other hand, no English inn could produce a chambermaid so

very like a dusky peach as Mercedes. She bounced out on to the dim landing, filling it with

vitality and a kind of glow, and she called up the stairs, 'A letter,

Teniente: I bring him . . . ' A moment later she was at his side, smiling with innocent

delight: but he was only too clearly aware of what any letter addressed to him might have

in it, and he did not respond with anything more than a mechanical jocosity and a vague

dart at her bosom.

'And Captain Allen come for you,' she added.

'Allen? Allen? What the devil can he want with me?' Captain Allen was a quiet, elderly

man; all that Jack knew of him was that he was an American Loyalist and that he was

considered very set in his ways - invariably tacked by suddenly putting his helm hard a-

lee, and wore a long-skirted waistcoat. 'Oh, the funeral, no doubt,' he said. 'A subscription.'

'Sad, Teniente, sad?' said Mercedes, going away along the corridor. 'Poor Teniente.'

Jack took his candle from the table and went straight to his room. He did not trouble with

the letter until he had thrown off his coat and untied his stock; then he looked suspiciously

at the outside. He noticed that it was addressed, in a hand he did not know, to Captain

Aubrey, R.N.: he frowned, said 'Damned fool', and turned the letter over. The black seal

had been blurred in the impression, and although he held it close to the candle, directing

the light in a slanting manner over its surface, he could not make it out.

'I cannot make it out,' he said. 'But at least it ain't old Hunks. He always seals with a

wafer.' Hunks was his agent, his vulture, his creditor.

At length he went so far as to open the letter, which read:

By the Right Honourable Lord Keith, Knight of the Bath, Admiral of the Blue and

Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels employed and to be employed in

the Mediterranean, etc., etc., etc.

Whereas Captain Samuel Allen of His Majesty's Sloop Sophie is removed to the Pallas,

Captain James Bradby deceased -You are hereby required and directed to proceed on

board the Sophie and take upon you the Charge and Command of Commander of her;

willing and requiring all the Officers and Company belonging to the said Sloop to behave

themselves in their several Employments with all due Respect and Obedience to you their

Commander; and you likewise to observe as well the General Printed Instructions as what

Orders and Directions you may from time to time receive from any your superior Officer for

His Majesty's Service. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the

contrary at your Peril.

And for so doing this shall be your Order.

Given on board the Foudroyant

at sea, 1st April, 1800.

To John Aubrey, Esqr, hereby appointed Commmander of His Majesty's Sloop Sophie By

command of the Admiral Thos Walker

His eyes took in the whole of this in a single instant, yet his mind refused either to read or

to believe it: his face went red, and with a curiously harsh, severe expression he obliged

himself to spell through it line by line. The second reading ran faster and faster: and an

immense delighted joy came welling up about his heart. His face grew redder still, and his

mouth widened of itself. He laughed aloud and tapped the letter, folded it, unfolded it and

read it with the closest attention, having entirely forgotten the beautiful phrasing

of the middle paragraph. For an icy second the bottom of the new world that had sprung

into immensely detailed life seemed to be about to drop out as his eyes focused upon the

unlucky date. He held the letter up to the light, and there, as firm, comforting and

immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, he saw the Admiralty's watermark, the eminently

respectable anchor of hope.

He was unable to keep still. Pacing briskly up and down the room he put on his coat,

threw it off again and uttered a series of disconnected remarks, chuckling as he did so.

'There I was, worrying. . . ha, ha. . . such a neat little brig

- know her well.. . ha, ha. . . should have thought myself the happiest of men with the

command of the sheer-hulk, or the Vulture slop-ship . . . any ship at all . . . admirable

copperplate hand - singular fine paper. . . almost the only quarterdeck brig in the service:

charming cabin, no doubt

capital weather - so warm .. . ha, ha... if only I can get men: that's the great point. . .' He

was exceedingly hungry and thirsty: he darted to the bell and pulled it violently, but before

the rope had stopped quivering his head was out in the corridor and he was hailing the

chambermaid. 'Mercy! Mercy! Oh, there you are, my dear. What can you bring me to eat,

manger, mangiare? Polio? Cold roast polio? And a bottle of wine, vino - two bottles of

vino. And Mercy, will you come and do something for me? I want you, desirer, to do

something for me, eh? Sew on, cosare, a button.'

'Yes, Teniente,' said Mercedes, her eyes rolling in the candlelight and her teeth flashing

white.

'Not teniente,' cried Jack, crushing the breath out of her plump, supple body. 'Capitan!

Capitano, ha, ha, ha!'

He woke in the morning straight out of a deep, deep sleep:

he was fully awake, and even before he opened his eyes he was brimming with the

knowledge of his promotion.

'She is not quite a first-rate, of course,' he observed, 'but who on earth wants a blundering

great first-rate, with

not the slightest chance of an independent cruise? Where is she lying? Beyond the

ordnance quay, in the next berth to the Rattler. I shall go down directly and have a look at

her -waste not a minute. No, no. That would never do - must give them fair warning. No:

the first thing I must do is to go and render thanks in the proper quarters and make an

appointment with Allen - dear old Alien - I must wish him joy.'

The first thing he did in point of fact was to cross the road to the naval outfitter's and

pledge his now elastic credit to the extent of a noble, heavy, massive epaulette, the mark

of his present rank - a symbol which the shopman fixed upon his left shoulder at once and

upon which they both gazed with great complacency in the long glass, the shopman

looking from behind Jack's shoulder with unfeigned pleasure on his face.

As the door closed behind him Jack saw the man in the black coat on the other side of the

road, near the coffee-house. The evening flooded back into his mind and he hurried

across, calling out, 'Mr - Mr Maturin. Why, there you are, sir. I owe you a thousand

apologies, I am afraid. I must have been a sad bore to you last night, and I hope you will

forgive me. We sailors hear so little music -are so little used to genteel company - that we

grow carried away. I beg your pardon.'

'My dear sir,' cried the man in the black coat, with an odd flush rising in his dead-white

face, 'you had every reason to be carried away. I have never heard a better quartetto in

my life - such unity, such fire. May I propose a cup of chocolate, or coffee? It would give

me great pleasure.'

'You are very good, sir. I should like it of all things. To tell the truth, I was in such a hurry of

spirits I forgot my breakfast. I have just been promoted,' he added, with an off-hand laugh.

'Have you indeed? I wish you joy of it with all my heart, sure. Pray walk in.'

At the sight of Mr Maturin the waiter waved his forefinger

in that discouraging Mediterranean gesture of negation - an inverted pendulum. Maturin

shrugged, said to Jack, 'The posts are wonderfully slow these days,' and to the waiter,

speaking in the Catalan of the island, 'Bring us a pot of chocolate, Jep, furiously whipped,

and some cream.'

'You speak the Spanish, sir?' said Jack, sitting down and flinging out the skirts of his coat

to clear his sword in a wide gesture that filled the low room with blue. 'That must be a

splendid thing, to speak the Spanish. I have often tried, and with French and Italian too;

but it don't answer. They generally understand me, but when they say anything, they

speak so quick I am thrown out. The fault is here, I dare say,' he'observed, rapping his

forehead. 'It was the same with Latin when I was a boy: and how old Pagan used to flog

me.' He laughed so heartily at the recollection that the waiter with the chocolate laughed

too, and said, 'Fine day, Captain, sir, fine day!'

'Prodigious fine day,' said Jack, gazing upon his rat-like visage with great benevolence.

'Bello soleil, indeed. But,' he added, bending down and peering out of the upper part of the

window, 'it would not surprise me if the tramontana were to set in.' Turning to Mr Maturin

he said, 'As soon as I was out of bed this morning I noticed that greenish look in the nor-

nor-east, and I said to myself, "When the sea-breeze dies away, I should not be surprised

if the tramontana were to set in."

'It is curious that you should find foreign languages difficult, sir,' said Mr Maturin, who had

no views to offer on the weather, 'for it seems reasonable to suppose that a good ear for

music would accompany a facility for acquiring - that the two would necessarily run

together.'

'I am sure you are right, from a philosophical point of view,' said Jack. 'But there it is. Yet it

may well be that my musical ear is not so very famous, neither; though indeed I love

music dearly. Heaven knows I find it hard enough to pitch upon the true note, right in the

middle.'

'You play, sir?'

'I scrape a little, sir. I torment a fiddle from time to time.'

'So do I! So do I! Whenever I have leisure, I make my attempts upon the 'cello.'

'A noble instrument,' said Jack, and they talked about Boccherini, bows and rosin,

copyists, the care of strings, with great satisfaction in one another's company until a

brutally ugly clock with a lyre-shaped pendulum struck the hour: Jack Aubrey emptied his

cup and pushed back his chair. 'You will forgive me, I am sure. I have a whole round of

official calls and an interview with my predecessor. But I hope I may count upon the

honour, and may I say the pleasure - the great pleasure - of your company for dinner?'

'Most happy,' said Maturin, with a bow.

They were at the door. 'Then may we appoint three o'clock at the Crown?' said Jack. 'We

do not keep fashionable hours in the service, and I grow so devilish hungry and peevish

by then that you will forgive me, I am sure. We will wet the swab, and when it is

handsomely awash, why then perhaps we might try a little music, if that would not be

disagreeable to you.'

'Did you see that hoopoe?' cried the man in the black coat. 'What is a hoopoe?' cried Jack,

staring about. 'A bird. That cinnamon-coloured bird with barred wings. Upupa epops.

There! There, over the roof. There! There!'

'Where? Where? How does it bear?'

'It has gone now. I had been hoping to see a hoopoe ever since I arrived. In the middle of

the town! Happy Mahon, to have such denizens. But I beg your pardon. You were

speaking of wetting a swab.'

'Oh, yes. It is a cant expression we have in the Navy. The swab is this' - patting his

epaulette - 'and when first we ship it, we wet it: that is to say, we drink a bottle or two of

wine.'

'Indeed?' said Maturin with a civil inclination of his

head. 'A decoration, a badge of rank, I make no doubt? A most elegant ornament, so it is,

upon my soul. But, my dear sir, have you not forgot the other one?'

'Well,' said Jack, laughing, 'I dare say I shall put them both on, by and by. Now I will wish

you a good day and thank you for the excellent chocolate. I am so happy that you saw

your epop.'

- The first call Jack had to pay was to the senior captain, the naval commandant of Port

Mahon. Captain Harte lived in a big rambling house belonging to one Martinez, a Spanish

merchant, and he had an official set of rooms on the far side of the patio. As Jack crossed

the open spaces he heard the sound of a harp, deadened to a tinkle by the shutters - they

were drawn already against the mounting sun, and already geckoes were hurrying about

on the sunlit walls.

Captain Harte was a little man, with a certain resemblance to Lord St Vincent, a

resemblance that he did his best to increase by stooping, by being savagely rude to his

subordinates and by the practice of Whiggery: whether he disliked Jack because Jack was

tall and he was short, or whether he suspected him of carrying on an intrigue with his wife,

it was all one - there was a strong antipathy between them, and it was of long standing.

His first words were, 'Well, Mr Aubrey, and where the devil have you been? I expected you

yesterday afternoon - Allen expected you yesterday afternoon. I was astonished to learn

that he had never seen you at all. I wish you joy, of course,' he said without a smile, 'but

upon my word you have an odd notion of taking over a command. Allen must be twenty

leagues away by now, and every real sailorman in the Sophie with him, no doubt, to say

nothing of his officers. And as for all the books, vouchers, dockets, and so on, we have

had to botch it up as best we could. Precious irregular. Uncommon irregular.'

'Pallas has sailed, sir?' cried Jack, aghast.

'Sailed at midnight, sir,' said Captain Harte, with a look of

satisfaction. 'The exigencies of the service do not wait upon our pleasure, Mr Aubrey. And

I have been obliged to make a draft of what he left for harbour duty.'

'I only heard last night - in fact this morning, between one and two.'

'Indeed? You astonish me. I am amazed. The letter certainly went off in good time. It is the

people at your inn who are at fault, no doubt. There is no relying on your foreigner. I give

you joy of your command, I am sure, but how you will ever take her to sea with no people

to work her out of the harbour I must confess I do not know. Allen took his lieutenant, and

his surgeon, and all the promising midshipmen; and I certainly cannot give you a single

man fit to set one foot in front of another.'

'Well, sir,' said Jack, 'I suppose I must make the best of what I have.' It was

understandable, of course: any officer who could would get out of a small, slow, old brig

O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 01 - Master & Commander

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