lieutenant had long ago seen that Mr Lydgate’s persistence was disagreeable to Captain Aubrey, and he turned the conversation back to animals aboard. Dogs in ships he had known:the Newfoundland that so lovingly brought a smoking grenade; the Culloden’s pet crocodile; cats.
‘Dogs,’ said the chaplain, who was not one to leave his corner of the table silent long. ‘That reminds me of a question I had meant to put to you gentlemen. This short watch that is about to come, or rather these two short watches - why are they called dog watches? Where, heu, heu, is the canine connection?’
‘Why,’ said Stephen, ‘it is because they are curtailed, of course.’
A total blank. Stephen gave a faint inward sigh; but he was used to this. ‘Mr Butler, the bottle stands by you,’ said Jack. ‘Mr Lydgate, allow me to help you to a little of the undercut.’
It was the midshipman who first reacted. He whispered to his neighbour Dashwood, ‘He said, cur-?tailed: the dogwatch is cur-?tailed. Do you twig?’
It was the sort of wretched clench perfectly suited to the company. The spreading merriment, the relish, the thunderous mirth, reached the forecastle, causing amazement and conjecture: Jack leaned back in his chair, wiping the tears from his scarlet face, and cried, ‘Oh, it is the best thing - the best thing. Bless you, Stephen - a glass of wine with you. Mr Simmons, if we dine with the admiral, you must ask me, and I will say, “Why, it is because they have been docked, of course.” No, no. I am out. Cur-?tailed -cur-?tailed. But I doubt I should ever be able to get it out gravely enough.’
They did not dine with the admiral, however; no loving messages answered their salute to the flagship; but the moment they dropped anchor in the crowded Downs Parker came aboard from the Fanciulla with his brand-? new epaulette, to congratulate and to be congratulated.
Jack felt a certain pang when the boat answered the Lively’s hail with ‘Fanciulla’, meaning that her captain was aboard; but the sight of Parker’s face as it came level with the deck and the affection that beamed from it, did away with all repining. Parker looked ten, fifteen years younger; he came up the side like a boy; he was wholly and absolutely delighted. He most bitterly regretted that he was under orders to sail within the hour, but he solemnly engaged Jack and Stephen to dine with him at the very next meeting; he thought curtailed by far the best thing he had ever heard in his life - should certainly repeat it - but he had always known that Dr Maturin was a towering intellect - was still taking his pill, morning and evening, and should continue to do so until the end of his life; and on leaving he took Jack’s hesitant ‘Captain Parker would not be offended if he suggested? a relaxation - a curtailing of the cat, as he might say’ very well indeed. He said he should pay the utmost attention to advice from such a - such an esteemed quarter, such a very, very highly esteemed quarter. On saying good-?bye he took both Jack’s hands in his and, with tears in his small, close-?set eyes, he said, ‘You don’t know what it means, sir, success at fifty-?six - success at last. It changes a man’s whole, eh heart. Why I could kiss the ship’s boys.’
Jack’s eyebrows shot into his bandage but he returned Parker’s fervent grip and saw him to the gangway. He, was profoundly touched and he stood there looking after the boat as it pulled over to the beautiful little sloop until the first lieutenant came up to him and said, ‘Mr Dashwood has a request to make, sir, if you please. He would like to take his sister down to Portsmouth: she is married to a Marine officer there.’
‘Oh, certainly, Mr Simmons. She will be very welcome. She may have the after-?cabin. But stay, the after-?cabin is filled with . . .
‘No, no, sir. He would not hear of putting you out - it is only his sister. He will sling a hammock in the gun-? room, and she shall have his cabin. That is how we always did these things when Captain Hamond was aboard. Shall you be going ashore, sir?’
‘No. Killick will go to pick up my coxswain and some stores and salve against bee-?stings; but I shall stay aboard. Keep a boat for Dr Maturin, however: I believe he will wish to go. Good day to you, ma’am,’he said, moving aside and taking off his hat as Mrs Armstrong, the gunner’s wife, shook the gangway with her bulk. ‘Take care - hold on to the side-?ropes with both hands.’
‘Bless you sir,’ said Mrs Armstrong with a jolly wheeze, ‘I been in and out of ships since I was a little maid.’ She took one basket between her teeth, two more under her left arm, and dropped into the boat like a midshipman.
‘That is an excellent woman, sir,’ said the first lieutenant, looking down into the hoveller. ‘She nursed me through a fever in Java when Mr Floris and the Dutch surgeons had given me up.’
‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘there were women in the Ark, so I suppose there must be some good in ‘em; but generally speaking I have never known anything but trouble come of shipping them on a voyage - quarrels, discussions, not enough to go round, jealousies. I do not even care for them in port - drunkenness, and a sick-?list as long as your arm. Not that this has the least bearing on Mrs Gunner of course, or the other warrant officers’ wives - still less to Mr Dashwood’s sister. Ah, Stephen, there you are - ‘Simmons withdrew - ‘I was just telling the first lieutenant that you would probably be going ashore. You will take the barge, will you not? Two of the supernumeraries are not to report aboard until the morning, so you will have all the time in the world.’
Stephen looked at him with his strange pale unblinking eyes. Had that old constraint returned, that curious misery? Jack was looking conscious - unnaturally, inappropriately gay: a wretched actor. ‘Shall you not go, Jack?’ he said.
‘No, sir,’ said Jack. ‘I shall stay aboard. Between ourselves,’ he added in a much lower tone, ‘I do not believe I shall ever willingly set foot on shore again: indeed, I have sworn an oath never to risk arrest. But,’ he cried, with that painful, jarring, artificial assumption of levity that Stephen knew so well, ‘I must beg you to get some decent coffee when you go. Killick is no judge. He can tell good wine from bad, as you would expect in a smuggler; but he is no judge of coffee.’
Stephen nodded. ‘I must also buy some issue-?peas,’ he said. ‘I shall call at New Place, and I shall look into the hospital. Have you any messages?’
‘Compliments, of course, best compliments: and my very kindest wishes to Babbington and the other wounded Polychrests - this is for their comforts, if you please. Macdonald, too. Please tell Babbington I am particularly sorry not to be able to visit him - it is quite impossible.’
It was drawing towards evening when Stephen left the hospital: his patients were doing well - one shocking belly-?wound had astonished him by living - and Babbington’s arm was safe; his professional mind was easy and content as he walked up through the town towards New Place. His professional mind: but the whole of the rest of his spirit, feeling out with un-?logical antennae, sensing the immaterial, was in such a state of preparedness that he was not in any way surprised to see the house boarded and shut up.
It seemed that the mad gentleman had been driven away in a coach and four ‘weeks and weeks ago’ or ’some time last month, maybe’ or ‘before we got in the apples’, bowing from the window and laughing fit to burst his
