However, Jack had been gazing at this scene ever since the pale disc of the sun had made it visible, and during the pull to the flagship his mind was taken up with other things: his expression was grave and contained as he went up the side, saluted the quarterdeck, greeted the Cumberland’s captain, and was shown into the great cabin.
Admiral Harte was eating kippers and drinking tea, his secretary and a mass of papers on the other side of the table. He had aged shockingly since Jack had last seen him; his shallow eyes seemed to have moved even closer together and his look of falsity to have grown even more pronounced.
‘So here you are at last,’ he cried - with a smile, however, and reaching up an unctuous hand. ‘You must have come dawdling up the Channel; I expected you three tides ago, upon my honour.’ Admiral Harte’s honour and Jack’s dawdling were much on a par, and Jack only bowed. The remark was not intended to be answered, in any case - a mere automatic unpleasantness - and Harte went on, with an awkward assumption of familiarity and good fellowship. ‘Sit down. What have you been doing with yourself? You look ten years older. The girls at the back of Portsmouth Point, I dare say. Do you want a cup of tea?’
Money was Harte’s nearest approach to joy, his ruling passion: in the Mediterranean, where they had served together, Jack had been remarkably successful in the article of prizes; he had been given cruise after cruise, and he had put more than ten thousand pounds into his admiral’s pocket. Captain Harte, as commandant of Port Mahon, hd come in for no share of this, of course, and his dislike for Jack had remained unaffected; but now the case was altered; now he stood to gain by Jack’s exertions, and he meant to conciliate his good will.
Jack was rowed back again, still over this silent water, but with something less of gravity in his look. He could not understand Harte’s drift; it made him uneasy, and the lukewarm tea was disagreeable in his stomach; but he had met with no open hostility, and his immediate future was clear - the Polychrest was not to go with this convoy, but was to spend some time in the Downs, seeing to the manning of the squadron and the harassing of the invasion flotilla over the way.
Aboard the Polychrest his officers stood waiting for him; the hammocks were up, as neat as art could make them, the decks were clean, the ropes flemished, the Marines geometrically exact as they presented arms and all the officers saluted; yet something was out of tune. The odd flush on Parker’s face, the lowering obstinacy on Stephen’s, the concern on Pullings’, Goodridge’s and Macdonald’s, gave him a notion of what was afoot; and this notion was confirmed five minutes later, when the first lieutenant came into his cabin and said, ‘I am very much concerned to have to report a serious breach of discipline, sir.’
A little after breakfast, while Jack was aboard the admiral, Stephen had come on deck: the first thing he had seen there was a man running aft with a bosun’s mate beating him from behind - not an uncommon sight in a man-?of-?war. But this man had a heavy iron marline-?spike between his teeth, held tight with spunyarn, and as he screamed, blood ran from either side of his mouth. He came to a dead halt at the break of the quarterdeck, and Stephen, taking a lancet from his waistcoat pocket, stepped up to him, cut the spunyarn, took the spike and threw it into the sea.
‘I remonstrated with him - I told him that the punishment was inflicted upon my orders - and he attacked me with an extreme ferocity.’
‘Physically?’
‘No, sir. Verbally. He cast out reflections upon my courage and my fitness to command. I should have taken decided measures, but I knew that you were shortly to return, and I understood he was your friend. I hinted that he should withdraw to his cabin: he did not see fit to comply, but stayed pacing the quarterdeck, on the starboard side, although it was represented to him that with the captain out of the ship, this was my prerogative.’
‘My friendship for Dr Maturin is neither here nor there, Mr Parker: I am surprised that you should have mentioned it. You must understand that he is an Irish gentleman of great eminence in his profession, that he knows very little, almost nothing, of the service, and that he is extremely impatient of being practised upon - being made game of. He does not always know when we are earnest and when we are not. I dare say there has been some misunderstanding in this case. I remember him to have flown out very savagely at the master of the Sophie over what he conceived to be a misplaced joke about a trysailmast.’
‘A master is not a lieutenant.’
‘Now, sir, do you instruct me upon rank? Do you pretend to tell me something that is clear to a newly-?joined midshipman?’ Jack did not raise his voice, but he was pale with anger, not only at Parker’s stupid impertinence but even more at the whole situation, and at what must come. ‘Let me tell you, sir, that your methods of discipline do not please me, I had wished to avoid this: I had supposed that when I observed to you that your punishment of Isaac Barrow was perfectly illegal, that you would have taken the hint. And there were other occasions. Let us understand one another. I am not a preachee-?flogee captain: I will have a taut ship, by flogging if need be, but I will have no unnecessary brutality. What is the name of the man you gagged?’
‘I am sorry to say I do not recall his name for the moment, sir. A landsman, sir - a waister in the larboard watch.’
‘It is usual in the service for an efficient first lieutenant to know the names of the men. You will oblige me by finding it directly.’
‘William Edwards, sir,’ said Parker, some moments later.
‘William Edwards. Just so. A scavenger from Rutland: took the bounty. Had never seen the sea or a ship or an officer in his life - no notion of discipline. He answered, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sir. Said, “I came as fast as I could, and who are you, any gait?” on being rebuked for slackness.’
‘Why was he being started?’
‘He left his post without leave, to go to the head.’
‘There must be some discrimination, Mr Parker. When he has been aboard long enough to know his duty, to know the officers and for the officers to know him - and I repeat that it is an officer’s duty to know his men - then he may be gagged for answering. If indeed he should do so, a most unlikely event in a ship even half well run. And the same applies to most of the crew; it is useless and detrimental to the good of the service to beat them until they know what is required of them. You, an experienced officer, clearly misunderstood Edwards: you thought he intended gross disrespect. It is exceedingly possible that Dr Maturin, with no experience whatsoever, misunderstood you. Be so good as to show me your defaulters list. This will not do, Mr Parker. Glave, Brown, Stindall, Burnet, all newly-?joined landsmen: and so it runs, a list long enough for a first-?rate, an ill-?conducted first-?rate. We shall deal with this later. Pass the word for Dr Maturin.’
This was a Jack Aubrey he had never seen before larger than life, hard, cold, and strong with a hundred years of tradition behind him, utterly convinced that he was right. ‘Good morning, Dr Maturin,’ he said. ‘There has
