'The Tory view of a human life . 'began Clonfert.
'Lord Clonfert,' called Jack in a strong voice, 'the bottle stands by you.' And immediately afterwards, aiming at bawdy, in which all could share, and quickly attaining it, he spoke of the striking increase--the potential increase-- in the population of the colony since the squadron's arrival: 'a single member of my midshipmen's berth has already contrived to get two girls with child: one brown, the other isabella- coloured.' The others turned with equal relief to similar accounts, to reminiscences of burning wenches in Sumatra, at Port au-Prince, in the Levantine ports; to rhymes, to conundrums; and the afternoon ended in general merriment.
The Nereide, her topgallantmasts and her new gig on board at last, left Simon's Town for Mauritius that evening: and as they stood watching her out of the bay, Stephen said to Jack, 'I am sorry I started that hare; it gave you some uneasiness, I am afraid. Had I recollected, I should not have asked it in public, for it was a private question--I asked for information sake. And now I do not know whether the public answer was that of the Commodore or of the plain, unpendanted Jack Aubrey.'
'It was something of both,' said Jack. 'I do in fact dislike hanging more than I said, though more for myself than for the hanged man: the first time I saw a man run up to the yardarm with a night cap over his eyes and his hands tied behind his back, when I was a little chap in the Ramillies, I was as sick as a dog. But as for the man himself, if he has deserved hanging, deserved it by our code, I find it don't signify so very much what happens to him. It seems to me that men are of different value, and that if some are knocked on the head, the world is not much the poorer.
'Sure, it is a point of view.'
'Perhaps it sounds a little hard; and perhaps I came it a little over-strong and righteous, when I was speaking, speaking as a commodore, to Clonfert.'
'You certainly gave him an impression of unbending severity and perfect rectitude.'
'Yes, I was pompous: yet I did not speak far beyond my own mind. Though I must confess he vexed me with his tragic airs and his human life--he has a singular genius for hitting the wrong note; people will accept that kind of thing from a learned man, but not from him; yet he will be prating. I hope he did not resent my checking him: I had to, you know, once he got on to Whigs and Tories. But I did it pretty civil, if you remember. I have a regard for him- few men could have got the Nir~ide out so quickly. Look, she is going about to weather the point. Prettily done--stays as brisk as a cutter, stays in her own length--he has a very good officer in his master: and he would be one himself too, with a little more ballast--a very good officer, was he a little less flighty.'
'It is curious to reflect,' wrote Stephen in his diary that night, 'that Jack Aubrey, with so very much more to lose, should value life so very much more lightly than Clonfert, whose immaterial possessions are so pitifully small, and who is partly aware of it. This afternoon's exchange confirms all I have observed in my acquaintance with both. It is to be hoped, if only from a medical point of view, that some resounding action will soon give Clonfert a real basis--a sounder basis than his adventitious consequence. Nothing, as Milton observes, profits a man like proper self-esteem: I believe I have mangled the poor man; but here is Mr Farquhar, the all- knowing, who will set me right. If only there were another thousand men on Rodriguez, I might write Governor Farquhar with some confidence even now.'
Mr Farquhar came aboard, but with no ceremony and with so small a train- one secretary, one servant--that it was clear he had been listening to the military men in Cape Town, who had little opinion of the sepoy in his own country and none at all of his fighting qualities elsewhere. Their considered opinion was that the French officers were right when they said that five regiments of European troops, supported by artillery, would be needed for a successful attack; that the hazards of landing on such a shore were so great that even five regiments were scarcely adequate, particularly as communication between the sea and the land might be cut off from one day to the next, and with it the troops' supplies; and that perhaps it would be better, all things considered, to wait for further reinforcements at the next monsoon.
'I wish I could share your sanguine outlook,' he said to Stephen, when at last he was in a fit condition to say anything at all (the Boadicea had had heavy weather until she reached the twenty-fifth parallel), 'but perhaps it is based upon more information than I possess?'
'No: my reports were tolerably complete, 'said Stephen. 'But I am not sure that you or the soldiers attach the same weight to our present superiority in ships. If, as it appears likely, two of their frigates are away from the scene of action, our local advantage is five to two; a very great advantage, and in this I do not count the Leopard, which is, I am told, only a smaller Raisonable, the kind of vessel that is facetiously termed a coffin-ship by the sailors, of questionable use even as a transport. It was long before I came to appreciate the prodigious force represented by a man-of-war of the larger kind: we can all envisage the dreadful power of a battery, of a fortress belching fire; but a ship seems so peaceful an object, and to the untutored eye so very like the Holyhead packet writ large, that perhaps one does not easily see it as a vast battery in itself, and what is more a moveable battery that can turn its resistless fire in various directions, and then, its work of destruction completed, glide smoothly off to begin again elsewhere. The three frigates, my dear sir, the three frigates by which we presumably outnumber our adversaries, represent an enormous train of artillery, a train that is not painfully dragged by innumerable horses, but is borne by the wind. I have seen them in action upon this very coast, and I have been amazed. There are also the enemy's lines of supply to be considered: superiority at sea means that they may readily be severed.'
'I take your point,' said Farquhar. 'But the decisive battle must be fought on land; and the few regiments we possess must be put down on that land.'
'Yes,' said Stephen. 'What you say is very true. And I admit that these considerations would make me more doubtful of the issue than in fact I am, were I not supported by what you would perhaps term an illogical source of hope.'
'It would be benevolent in you to share your comfort.'
'As you may know, in the service our Commodore is known as Lucky Jack Aubrey. I am not prepared to enter into the concept of luck, as it is vulgarly called: philosophically it is indefensible; in daily experience we see it to exist. All I will say is, that Captain Aubrey seems to possess it in an eminent degree; and it is that which cheers my sometimes pensive nights.'
'How I hope you are right,' cried Farquhar. 'How sincerely I hope you are right.' After a pause he added, 'For countless reasons: among them the fact that I do not touch emolument or allowance until I enter into my functions.' He paused again, passed his hand over his eyes, and swallowed painfully.
'Let us take a turn on deck, 'said Stephen. 'The greenish pallor is invading your face again, no doubt induced by melancholy thoughts as much as by the motion of the ship. The brisk trade-wind will blow them away.'
The brisk trade-wind instantly picked off Mr Farquhar's hat and wig. They flew forward, to be caught--a miracle of dexterity--by the bosun, who rose from the new best bower, seized the one in his right hand, the other in his left, and sent them aft by a midshipman. For his own part Mr Fellowes had preferred to keep the full length
