'Does he, though?' said Bonden, with a chuckle of satisfaction. 'But even so, we'd take it very kind in you to say a word: it would come more proper, like, from you. And we are main anxious to be out of Nereide.
'She is not altogether a happy ship, I collect?'
'No, sir, she ain't.' He rested on his oars again, and looking a little sideways at Stephen he added, 'She's a shot-rolling ship: that's what she is.'
Stephen knew nothing about the sailing of ships, theoretical or practical; but he did know that when a crew started trundling cannon-balls about the deck under the cover of darkness, then something was very much amiss; for the next stage was mutiny. He also knew that in any normal ship it would be unthinkable for an unusually steady, sober man like Bonden to be flogged.
'I'm not complaining, mark you,' said Bonden. 'Nor I'm not setting up in judgment: there are some right bastards in the Nereides, before the mast and elsewheres; and when things reach a certain pitch, in such a ship the cat falls on the just and the unjust alike. I can take fifty lashes as well as the next man, I hope; though I may say as how it was the first time the cat and me came acquainted--oh, I was beat like a drum when I was a little chap in the Thunderer, but that was only the master-at-arms' admonition, as we say. His cane, sir. No. What I mean is, that in the first place me and Killick and the rest want to get back to our own captain: and in the second, we want to get out before things turn nasty. And at the gait they are going now--well, I shouldn't give much for Captain Corbett's life, nor some of his officers, come an action, or even maybe a dirty night with no moon; and we want no part in it.'
'Ugly, Bonden, very ugly,' said Stephen, and no more until they were alongside the Boadicea, when he said, 'Good night, now; and thank you for rowing me home.'
He turned in with Leguat's Voyage, with its fascinating account of the solitaire, and Sparmann; and late in the middle watch he heard Jack come aboard. But it was not until quite late in the morning that they met, Stephen having been called to the sick-bay to deal with an alcoholic coma that had suddenly started to gush blood at the ears; and when they did meet it was clear to him that both his crapulous night and his crapulous morning (the sick-bay had smelt like a distillery) were to be prolonged. Captain Aubrey had the yellow, puffy look of one who has drunk far too much--so much indeed that his twenty-mile ride back had not worked it off. 'Twenty miles, more than twenty miles, on a damned screw that flung me down three times, and spoilt my best nankeen trousers,' he said. His steward had broken the coffee- pot: his French cook had gone ashore with Bretonniere to join the other prisoners of war, and never more would there be brioche for breakfast. But infinitely more than even the missing coffee was the fact that the Admiral had promised Jack his orders and had not produced them. An interminable, inconclusive conference with the Governor, Mr Farquhar and two general officers of a stupidity remarkable even for the army: then an equally long supper with the soldiers, determined to make their guest drunk. And all this while no orders. By the time Jack set off on his glandered mare the Admiral had long since gone to bed; the flag- lieutenant knew nothing about any orders, written or even contemplated. So here he was, as he told Stephen in the cabin, not knowing where he was: there had been no word about his pendant at any time. So here he was, left hanging up in the air: perhaps the expedition would not take place at all: and if It did, after months of delay, perhaps he was not intended to command at all--there had been a furtive, evasive look in the eye of the Admiral's secretary, an ill-looking, untrustworthy swab, for all he was a parson. There had been no mention of higher command in his original sailing orders, and although the Admiral had certainly spoken as though the matter were settled, the appointment no doubt lay at his discretion: the Admiral might have changed his mind: he might have been influenced by the opinion of the council. And then earlier there had been that ominous 'if you hoist your pendant'.
'Let us take a turn on deck,' he said. 'My head seems to be made of hot sand. And Stephen, might I beg you, implore you, not to smoke those vile things in the cabin? It is your pot-house all over again, like that soldiers' mess last night.'
They reached the quarterdeck in time to see an odd figure come up the side, a young man dressed in a gaudy coat and a little gaudy hat. He had come up the starboard side, the officers' side, and as he advanced towards Mr Seymour he saluted. The first lieutenant hesitated: not so Jack. 'Turn that fellow off the ship,' he roared. Then, in a lower voice, holding his hand to his aching forehead, 'What the devil does he mean by it, prancing about the deck of a King's ship improperly dressed, like a Jack-pudding? 'The young man got into a boat, and was rowed away by a crew of merry-andrews, all in much the same kind of rig.
Jack's steward cautiously sidled near, muttering something about 'the gunroom's pot', and Stephen said, 'I believe he means that coffee's up.' It was: and as they drank it benignity returned, helped by fresh cream, bacon, eggs, pig's fry, the last of the true French short bastards, toasted, and Sophie's orange marmalade.
'I am sorry I was so cursed snappish just now, about your cigar,' said Jack, pushing back his chair at last and undoing his waistcoat. 'Pray smoke, Stephen. You know I like the smell.'
'Ay,' said Stephen. He broke a cigar in three, crumbled one piece, moistened it with a few drops of coffee, rolled it in paper, and lit it with a voluptuous indraught. 'Listen, now, will you?' he said. 'Bonden, Killick and some others are aboard the Nir~ide, and wish to return to you. All tastes are to be found in nature, we are told; and it is to be presumed that they like the brutal, arbitrary, tyrannical exercise of power.'
'Oh,' cried Jack, 'how very, very pleased I am! It will be like old times. I have rarely regretted anything so much as having to part with them. But will Corbett ever let them go? He's devilish short- handed; and it's only a courtesy, you know, except to a flag. Why, a man like Bonden is worth his weight in gold.'
'Corbett does not seem to be aware of his value, however: he gave him fifty lashes.'
'Flogged Bonden?' cried Jack, going very red. 'Flogged my cox'n? By God, I . . . '
A nervous young gentleman brought the news that the Commander-in-chief's flag-lieutenant had been seen putting off from the shore and the captain of the Otter from his sloop, and that Mr Seymour thought Captain Aubrey might like to know.
'Thank you, Mr Lee,' said Jack, and he went on deck: Lord and Lady Clonfert had been far, far from his mind, but they came back with a rush as he saw the Otter's gig, pulled by the same merry-andrews of just before breakfast, approaching the Boadicea. It was at about the same distance as the Raisonable's barge, but the flag- lieutenant paused by the flagship to exchange a bellowed and apparently very amusing conversation with a friend on her poop, and before it was over the gig was alongside.
Clonfert was piped aboard, a slight, strikingly handsome, youthful-looking man in full uniform with a star on the bosom of his coat and a singular expression of expectation and uneasiness on his face. He flushed as Jack shook his hand, saying, 'I am happy to see you again, Clonfert; but I heartily wish I had better news for you. Come into my cabin.' Once there he went on, 'I am very much concerned to tell you, that because of an unfortunate misunderstanding about the time, I was obliged to leave Plymouth without Lady Clonfert.'
'Oh,' said Clonfert, with a look of bitter contrariety on his mobile face. 'I was afraid that might be so. I sent early to enquire, but it seems that the message I sent by one of my officers could not be received.'
