depths, an awful voice, deep, slow, thick tongued and as it were drunk, but recognizable as Colley's, spoke from behind the hanging skin and said, 'Jo. Pass that fucking gasket, Jo.' By this time the audience had dwindled, and many of the remaining ghouls were as wan as Colley himself; they revived, however, when the surgeons placed the silver cover on the hole, fastened it down, restored the patient's scalp to its usual place, sewed it up, washed their hands in the scuttle-butt, and dismissed him below. A pleased murmur ran round the ship, and Jack, stepping forward, said, 'I believe I may congratulate you, gentlemen, upon a very delicate manoeuvre?'
They bridled and said it was nothing so extraordinary--any competent surgeon could have done as much and in any case, they added, with a sincerity that would have caused Mrs Colley a dreadful pang, there was no call for congratulation until the inevitable crisis had declared itself: after all, it could not be said that any operation was wholly successful unless the patient at least outlived the crisis. After that the cause of death might reasonably be assigned to a host of other factors.
'Oh, how I hope he lives,' said Jack, his eye still on the distant enemy. 'Colley is a prime seaman, a capital, steady hand, and can point his gun as well as any man in the ship. Has a large number of children, too, as I recall.'
All this was very true: Tom Colley, when sober, was a valuable though pugnacious member of his division; he had been bred to the sea and he could hand, reef and steer without having to take thought, and it was a JOY to see him dance a hornpipe: the ship would not be the same without him. But beneath this valid reasoning lay a region that the kind observer might have called a sort of mysticism and that others, perhaps more enlightened, would have described as brutish superstition. Jack would not have had it known for the world, but he equated the seaman's recovery with the success of his campaign: and from the behaviour of the Astree and Iphigenia over there, Colley was in a fair way to resurrection. If Hamelin had been present, flying his broad pendant aboard the Astrie rather than the Vinus, would the French attitude have been more determined? Would those two ships have risked the battle, to destroy all his hopes, whatever the cost to themselves? From what he knew of the French commodore, he doubted it.
'An impressive document,' said Governor Farquhar, handing back the copy of Pius VII's excommunication of Buonaparte, the hitherto unpromulgated but effective personal, greater excommunication, authenticated by the bishop's seal, 'and although some of the expressions are perhaps not quite Ciceronian, the whole amounts to the most tremendous damnation that I have ever seen. Were I a Catholic, it would make me extremely uneasy in my mind, if I were obliged to have anything to do with the wretch. The Bishop made no difficulty, I presume?' Stephen smiled, and Farquhar went on, 'How I regret your scruples. This would be of the greatest value to the ministry. Surely we should make another copy?'
'Never concern yourself about the ministry, my dear s1r,' said Stephen. 'They know of its existence. They know very well; it is a tolerably open secret, I assure you. But in any event, I must not imperil my source of information: and I have given an undertaking that only three men on the Mauritius shall see it, and that I shall then commit it to the flames.' He lapped the document, heavy with curses, in his handkerchief, and thrust it into his bosom: Farquhar looked wistfully at the bulge, but he only said, 'Ah, if you have given an undertaking . . . ' and they both glanced at the slips of paper upon which they had noted the subjects they were to discuss.
Stephen's were all crossed off: one remained on Farquhar's list, but he seemed to find it difficult to broach. He paused, and laughed, and said, 'The form in which I have written this will never do. You would find it offensive. I reminded myself--very unnecessarily, I may add--to beg you to give me an explanation--oh, not in any way an official explanation, you understand--for the Commodore's abounding sanguine activity. He really seems to assume that our plans for invading the Mauritius can go forward in spite of this appalling disaster at the Ile de la Passe: he has thoroughly infected or perhaps I should say convinced Keating, and the two of them dart from point to point, day and night, flying in the face of the clearest evidence. Naturally I second him with all my power--I scarcely dare do otherwise, now that he has taken on his present heroic Jovian stature. He runs into this room, says, 'Farquhar, my good fellow, be so good as to cut all the tallest trees on the island and set all carpenters to work directly. The Afiricaine must have masts by dawn on Thursday at the latest,' and runs out again. I tremble and obey: but when I reflect that the French possess seven frigates to our one and a pitiful wreck, and when I reckon up the guns at their disposal as opposed to ours, why, I am seized with an amazement.' He stared out of the window, seized with retrospective stupor; and to fill the gap Stephen observed that the number of guns counted for less than the accuracy with which they were pointed and the zeal with which they were served, adding that although the Africaine was not yet fit for battle, her guns were available for the other vessels, such as they were.
'Very true,' said the Governor. 'But I will confess that a perhaps unworthy explanation of the Commodore's eagerness thrust itself into my mind: it occurred to me that he might possibly have some encouraging intelligence that I did not share. Do not take my words amiss, Dr Maturin, I beg.'
'Never in life, my dear sir,' said Stephen. 'No: I have told him nothing that I have not told you. The answer lies on another plane entirely. As I understand it, Commodore Aubrey has arrived at an intimate conviction that we have a moral superiority over our opponents; that the initiative has changed sides; and that, as he puts it himself, although they want neither ships nor seamanship nor conduct, they do lack spirit. They lack an earnest desire to engage, to risk everything on one throw; and he is of the opinion that Hamelin also lacks the sense of the decisive moment in the ebb and flow of a campaign. Furthermore, it is his view that Commodore Hamelin is more interested in snapping up Indiamen than in gathering laurels at the one moment when they lie ready to his hand. He quoted your remark about Fortune with great approval, declaring that Hamelin would find the wench's forelock hellfire hard to grapple, now that she had forged ahead.'
'I made that remark in a very different context,' said Farquhar; but Stephen, carrying on with his thought, continued, 'I am no strategist, but I know Jack Aubrey well: I respect his judgment in naval matters, and I find his conviction, his military intuition, wholly persuasive. There may also be some illogical factors,' he added, being perfectly aware of the reason for Jack's frequent hurried visits to the hospital and his immoderate delight in Colley's recovery, 'such as seamen's omens and the like, that need not detain a rational mind.'
'So you are persuaded,' said the Governor doubtfully. 'Well then, I too am persuaded; though at one remove. But at least there is no prospect of his stirring until the Africaine is ready for sea? No prospect, in this extremely dangerous situation, of his dashing out like a sea-borne Bayard to engage at seven to one?'
'I imagine not, but I would scarcely answer for it. Now, sir,' said Stephen, standing up, 'I must beg to take my leave: the boat is no doubt waiting, and I shall have harsh words if I do not hurry.'
'I shall see you again very shortly?' asked Farquhar.
'Yes, with the blessing. This journey takes me no farther than the south west tip of the Mauritius, the Morne Brabant, where I see two officers of the Irish troops and another gentleman; and I think I can promise that the Commodore and Colonel Keating will have little trouble with the more Catholic members of General Decaen's garrison, when they come face to face.' As they walked through the hall he said in an undertone, tapping his chest, 'This is so very much more portable than a hundredweight of gold, and so very, very much more effective.'
The great door opened, and in the entrance they were very nearly run down by Mr Trollope, who came bounding up the steps of the Residence four at a time. He recovered himself, cast a reproachful look at Stephen, plucked off his hat, and said, 'I beg your pardon, your Excellency, but I am charged with the Commodore's respectful compliments and might he have seven hundred and fifty blacks before the evening gun? I was also to remind Dr Maturin that he asked for the aviso at five and twenty minutes past four o'clock precisely.'
