This was not a Sunday afternoon, with ship-?visiting and liberty boats plying to and fro in the squadron; it was an ordinary working day, with all hands creeping up and down the rigging or exercising at the great guns; nothing but a Dover bumboat and a Deal hoveller came anywhere near the Polychrest; and yet long before Jack’s return it was known throughout the ship that she was on the wing. Where bound, no one could tell, though many tried (to the westward, to Botany Bay, the Mediterranean to carry presents to the Dey of Algiers and redeem Christian slaves). But the rumour was so strong that Mr Parker cleared her hawse, heaved short, and, with a hideous memory of unmooring at Spithead, sent the crew to their stations for this manoeuvre again and again, until even the dullest could find the capstan and his place on the bar. He received Jack back aboard with a look of discreet but earnest inquiry, and Jack, who had seen his preparations, said, ‘No, no, Mr Parker, you may veer away astern; it is not for today. Desire Mr Babbington to come into the cabin, if you please.’
‘Mr Babbington,’ he said, ‘you are in a very repellent state of filth.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Babbington, who had spent the first dog-?watch in the maintop with two buckets of flush from the galley, showing a framework-?knitter, two thatchers
(brothers: much given to poaching), and a monoglot Finn how to grease the masts, sheets and running-? rigging generally, and who was liberally plastered with condemned butter and skimmings from the coppers in which salt pork had been boiled. ‘Beg pardon, sir.’
‘Be so good as to scrub yourself from clew to earring, to shave - you may borrow Mr Parslow’s razor, I dare say - to put on your best uniform and report back here. My compliments to Mr Parker and you are to take the blue cutter to Dover with Bonden and six reliable men who deserve liberty until the evening gun. The same to Dr Maturin, and I should be glad to see him.’
‘Aye, aye, sir. Oh thank you, sir.’
He turned to his desk:
Polychrest in the Downs
Captain Aubrey presents his best compliments to Mrs Villiers and much regrets that duty prevents him from accepting her very kind invitation to dine on Friday. However, he hopes to have the honour, and the pleasure, of waiting on her when he returns.
‘Stephen,’ he said, looking up, ‘I am writing to decline Diana’s invitation - we are ordered to sea tomorrow night.
Should you wish to add a word or send a message?
Babbington is making our excuses.’
‘Let Babbington bear mine by word of mouth, if you please. I am so glad you are not going ashore. It would have been the extreme of folly, with the Polychrest known to be on the station.’
Babbington came in, shining with cleanliness, in a frilled shirt and fine white breeches.
‘You remember Mrs Villiers?’ said Jack.
‘Oh yes, sir. Besides, I drove her to the ball.’
‘She is in Dover, at the house where you called for her - New Place. Be so good as to give her this note; and I believe Dr Maturin has a message.’
‘Compliments: regrets,’ said Stephen.
‘Now turn out your pockets,’ said Jack.
Babbington’s face fell. A little heap of objects appeared, some partially eaten, and a surprising number of coins -silver, a gold piece. Jack returned fourpence, observing that that would set him up handsomely in cheesecakes, recommended him to bring back all his men as he should answer the contrary at his peril, and desired him to ‘top his boom’.
‘It is the only way of keeping him even passably chaste,’ he said to Stephen. ‘There are a great many loose women in Dover, I am afraid.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Parker, ‘but a man by the name of Killick asks permission to come aboard.’
‘Certainly, Mr Parker,’ cried Jack. ‘He is my steward. There you are, Killick,’ he said, coming on deck. ‘I am happy to see you. What have you got there?’
‘Hampers, sir,’ said Killick, pleased to see his captain, but unable to restrain a wondering eye from running up and down the Polychrest. ‘One from Admiral Haddock. T’other from the ladies up at Mapes, or rather, from Miss Sophie, to speak correct: pig, cheeses, butter, cream, poultry and such, from Mapes; game from next door. Admiral’s clearing off his land, sir. There’s a prime bold roebuck there, sir, hung this sennight past, and any number of hares and such.’
‘Mr Malloch, a whip - no, a double whip to the main-?yard. Easy with those hampers, now. What’s the third bundle?’
‘Another roebuck, sir.’
‘Where from?’
‘Which it fouled the wheels of the tax-?cart I come in and hurt its leg, sir,’ said Killick, looking at the flagship in the distance with a kind of mild wonder. ‘Just half a mile after the turning to Provender bridge. No, I lie - maybe a furlong closer to Newton Priors. So I put it out of its misery, sir.’
‘Ah,’ said Jack. ‘The Mapes hamper is directed to Dr Maturin, I see.’
‘It’s all one, sir,’ said Killick. ‘Miss told me to say the pig weighs twenty-?seven and a half pound the quarter, and I am to set the hams to the tub the very minute I come aboard - the souse she put aside in thicky jar, knowing you liked ‘un. The white puddings is for the Doctor’s breakfast.’
‘Very good, Killick, very good indeed,’ said Jack. ‘Stow ‘em away. Handsomely with that buck - don’t you bruise him on any account.’
