Surpiise.
'So at least you have your water. As for ships, you have Boadicea, of course; Sin'us, with a good steady captain in Pym, as regular as a clock; Nereide--she is only a twelve-pounder, and getting on in years, but Corbett keeps her in very good order though he is rather undermanned; Otter, a fast, useful eighteen-gun sloop, in very good order too. Lord Clonfert has her: she should be in any moment now. And I can let you have Raisonable except in the hurricane months, for she cannot bear a hard blow. She is not all she was when I was a boy, but we careened her a few weeks ago, and she is quite fast. At least she is a match for the Canonniere, who is older still; and she makes a show. I might conceivably be able to add the Magicienne from Sumatra, in time, and the Victor, another sloop. But even without them, I conceive that, Raisonable cancelling out Canonniere, three well worked-up frigates and a powerful sloop would not be reckoned out of the way for dealing with four Frenchmen.'
'Certainly not, sir,' said Jack. The Admiral was speaking as though Jack's pendant were a certainty.
'No one will pretend it is an easy task, however. The Frenchmen are Venus, Manche, Caroline--it was she who took the last two Indiamen--and Bellone, all new forty-gun frigates. As for the rest, they have the Canonniere, as I have said, still mounting her fifty guns, our brig the Grappler, several avisos and a few smaller things. And I warn you, Aubrey, if you hoist your pendant, I cannot let you have a captain under you. If you shift into the Raisonable for the time being, Eliot can replace you in Boadicea; but I cannot let you have a captain under you.' Jack bowed. He had scarcely relied upon it: on the remoter stations there were few post-captains to spare; and then again if a commodore did have a captain under him, that commodore was entitled to a third of the Admiral's share of prize-money.
'May I ask whether we have any intelligence of their landforces, sir?' he said.
'Yes, but I wish it were more exact. On Mauritius General Decaen has the best part of two regiments of the line, and his militia may amount to ten thousand or so. Our information from Reunion is more scanty, but is seems that General Desbrusleys has much the same. Oh, it is a tough nut to crack, I grant you; but cracked it must be, and at the earliest possible moment. You have to strike hard and fast with your forces concentrated while theirs are dispersed: in a word, you have to go in and win. Government will be in a rare old taking when the news of the Europe and the Streatham reaches England, and this is the kind of situation where you must produce results at once. I do not mention the country's interests, of course; but I do say that from a purely personal point of view there is probably a knighthood or even a baronetcy if you succeed; and if you don't, why it is the beach and half- pay for the rest of your life.'
A midshipman darted in. 'The captain's duty, sir,' said he, 'and should you wish a compliment to the gentleman in the barge?'
'Certainly,' said the Admiral. 'As to a flag.' In the pause that followed he gazed abstractedly at his wife's portrait. 'Should you not like a baronetcy, Aubrey? I am sure I would. Mrs Bertie fairly longs to wipe her sister's eye.'
The unofficial part of Simon's Town, though little more than a hamlet, had drinking-booths, wine- shops and places of entertainment enough for a town of moderate size; and into one of those, at dusk, walked Stephen Maturin, bearing a bunch of orchids. He was tired, thirsty, and covered from head to foot with African dust; but he was happy, having spent his first half-day ashore walking up a mountain clothed with a vegetation largely unknown to him and inhabited by remarkable birds, some of which he recognized from their published descriptions: he had also seen three quarters of a female spotted hyaena, and he found the remaining piece, including its wistful face, removed to some distance, in the act of being devoured by his old friend the bearded vulture--a pleasant combination of the present and the past, of two far-distant worlds.
He called for wine and water, mingled them in proportion to his thirst, placed his orchids in the water- jug, and drank until at last he began to sweat again. Apart from the landlord and three pretty Malay girls at the bar, there were only two other people in the twilit room, a very large officer in a uniform he could not make out, a vast gloomy man with a great deal of dark whisker, not unlike a melancholy bear, and his smaller, inconspicuous companion, who sat at his ease in shirtsleeves, with his breeches unbuttoned at the knee. The sad officer spoke a fluent though curious English devoid of articles: the smaller man's harsh and grating accent was clearly that of Ulster. They were discussing the Real Presence, but he had not made out the thread of their discourse before they both burst out 'No Pope, no Pope, no Pope,' the sad officer in the deepest bass that Stephen had ever heard. At the bar the Malay girls politely echoed 'No Pope' and as though it were a signal they brought candles and set them about the room. The light fell on Stephen's orchids and upon the contents of his handkerchief, fourteen curious beetles, collected for his friend Sir Joseph Blaine, formerly the chief of naval intelligence; he was considering one, a bupestrid, when he became aware of a darkness by his side, the melancholy bear, gently swaying. 'Golovnin, fleet lieutenant, captain of Imperial Majesty's sloop Diana,' said he, clicking his heels.
Stephen rose, bowed, and said, 'Maturin, surgeon of Britannic Majesty's ship Boadicea. Please to take chair.'
'You have soul,' observed Golovnin, nodding at the orchids. 'I too have soul. Where did you find them, flowers?'
'In mountain,' said Stephen.
Golovnin sighed; and taking a small cucumber from his pocket he began to eat it. He made no reply to Stephen's proffer of wine, but after a while he said, 'What is their name, flowers?'
'Disa grandiflora,' said Stephen, and a long silence fell. It was broken by the Ulsterman, who, tired of drinking alone, brought his bottle over and set it on Stephen's table without the least ceremony. 'I am McAdam, of the Otter,' he remarked, sitting down. 'I saw you at the hospital this morning.' Now, by the light of the candle, Stephen recognized him, not from that morning but from many years ago: William McAdam, a maddoctor with a considerable reputation in Belfast, who had left Ireland after the failure of his private asylum. Stephen had heard him lecture, and had read his book on hysteria with great applause. 'He will not last long,' observed McAdam, referring to Golovmn, now weeping on to the orchids.
'Nor will you, colleague,' thought Stephen, looking at McAdam's pallid face and bloodshot eye.
'Will you take a wee drink?'
'Thank you, sir,' said Stephen, 'I believe I shall stay with my negus. What is it that you have in your bottle, pray?'
'Och, it's a brandy they distill hereabouts. Raw, rot-gut stuff; I drink it experimentally, not from indulgence. He'--pointing an unsteady finger at Golovmn -'drinks it from nostalgia, as the nearest to his native vodka; I encourage him.'
'You alluded to an experiment?' said Stephen.
'Yes. Strobenius and others allege that a man dead drunk on grain-spirits falls backwards: on brandy he falls forwards. And if that is true, it tells us something about the motor centres, if you understand the expression. This
