sometimes I doubt he knows the odds between east longitude and west, which would be a disadvantage to a mariner, particularly to a mariner in hurrying round the world to his wife. And so good night, my dearest soul.'
In another part of the ship Stephen Maturin, having no one to confide in, wrote to himself, to the Stephen Maturin of some future period, who alone could read this private, encoded diary: 'So Diana wrote. A generous, handsome motion on her part should not surprise me, since it is perfectly in character; meanness was never among her faults. Yet I am absurdly pleased. Herapath said of his Louisa Wogan that even when she was lying with other men she still remained his friend; and either he or I observed that deep friendship as men understand it is rare in women of the common sort On a smaller scale Wogan resembled Diana in many ways: perhaps also in this. I like to persuade myself - I easily persuade myself - that Diana Villiers retains a friendship, even a tenderness for me.' A pause, and he wrote, 'Wallis's report on the situation in Catalonia is the most interesting I have ever read. If only half of what Mateu states is true, the prospect has never been so full of promise; but how they need a man they can all trust, to act as a link between the different movements and to co-ordinate their efforts with those of the British government - in this case the government as represented by the Navy. Now that the French have killed En Jaume, I do not think there is a man better qualified than myself. I long to be there. But longing will not affect the countless miles of intervening sea, and I shall spend these months with my collections, happy in possessing such a wealth of time (though years would not be too long for a sound, scientific description of all the specimens). Some music and reading too, I trust. Captain Yorke seems a polite, amiable, and literate man, no mere sea-officer; he has neither read nor travelled in vain. My companions in the gunroom I have scarcely met. I hope they will prove more like their Captain than their first lieutenant; for on them the social comforts of this voyage must in a large degree depend.'
The social comforts of the gunroom were meagre enough, and after the Leopard's spacious, well-lighted wardroom the place itself seemed cramped. Warner was a mere sea-officer: his one aim in life seemed to be to make La Fl?e run through the water at the greatest possible speed consistent with the safety of her masts, and although he was not one of those spit-and-polish first lieutenants whom Stephen looked upon as the bane of the Navy, he was no very good company either, except perhaps for those who could speak knowingly of kites, moonsails, and star-gazers. He seemed to take no pleasure in anything; and in him the naval love of punctuality reached something not far from mania. He was far older than any other officer in the gunroom, and he ruled its proceedings with a firm and gloomy authority. Like the second lieutenant and Marine officer, Warner was a tall man; and since La Fl?e had been designed for swift-sailing stunted Frenchmen as far as her tween-decks was concerned, Stephen's first impression of the gunroom was that of a low thin shadowy place inhabited by three unnaturally large bowed figures, all looking at their watches. A fourth walked in immediately afterwards, bringing with him the smell of stale tobacco, alcohol, and unwashed clothes, a man even taller, even more bowed beneath the beams; and Warner introduced McLean, the surgeon. He was a young man and he seemed almost paralysed with shyness; at all events he remained profoundly silent, apart from an awkward plunge and grunt when Warner pronounced his name. Presently the drum beat and the room quickly filled, and when all were present, with their servants standing behind their chairs, there was scarcely room for the gunroom steward to carry in the pease- pudding and salt pork. The purser, the last man in, received a significant look from Mr Warner, a look that moved slowly from the purser's face to the watch still exposed in Warner's hand; but there were no harsh words, perhaps in honour of the guests. Babbington and Byron brought the sun with them, or if not the sun itself (for the gunroom had no stern-window) then at least some of the warmth and cheerfulness that Stephen had always associated with any gathering of sailors. They found a fellow-spirit in the master, and presently their end of the table was in a fine flow of conversation, reminiscence, anecdote, and laughter - former shipmates recalled, other commissions compared. Stephen laid out some pains in being agreeable to McLean, who sat by him, eating voraciously with a good deal of noise; but until half way through the meal there was little or no response. Then at last persuaded that Dr Maturin was neither going to snub or scorn him, McLean said, 'I hae your bukes,' adding something that Stephen could not catch, the accent being so strong, the voice so lowered in embarrassment. But judging by the young man's expression, the words were obliging, so Stephen bowed, murmuring, 'You are very good . too kind. I believe, sir, you are a naturalist yourself?'
Yes. As a wee bairn McLean first skelpit a mickle whaup his Daddie had whangit wi a stane, and then ilka beastie that came his way; comparative anatomy had been his joy from that day to this, and he named some of the beasties whose inward parts he had compared. But since the scoutie-allen, the partan, the clokie-doo and the gowk seemed not to convey any precise idea, he followed them with the Linnaean names; Stephen did the same for the creatures he referred to, and from this it was no great way to Latin descriptions of their more interesting processes. McLean was fluent in the language, having been to Jena, and Stephen found him far more comprehensible; presently they were talking away at a great rate, with barely a word of English but Och aye, and Hoot awa. They were deep in the caecum of Monodon monoceros when Stephen, becoming aware of a silence on his right, looked up and met the delighted grin of Babbington and Byron.
'We had just been boasting about you, sir,' said Babbington. 'We said you could talk Latin to beat a bishop, and these fellows would not believe it.'
'Duke,' cried Warner, obscurely displeased by all this, 'draw the cloth.' And as soon as the execrable port had appeared, 'Mr Vice, the King.'
Stephen blessed His Majesty, mastered an involuntary grimace, felt in his pocket for an Amboyna cheroot, recollected himself, and said, 'When you are at leisure, Mr McLean, I should be happy to show you some of my collections.'
McLean stood up at once: he was the Doctor's man directly, he said, if he might but have leave to pass by the galley for a pipe, this last with a nervous glance at Mr Warner.
'The galley? To smoke tobacco? I will join you,' said Stephen. 'Please to lead the way.' And to himself he added, 'There is some inherent imbecility in my will. No sooner have I rid myself of one addiction, than I plunge into another. How I long for my cheroot! I will return to snuff.'
They were not wanted in the galley. All the smokers of the watch below were already there and an awkward silence greeted the arrival of the officers. Silence and disapproval. Their own Doctor they were used to; they did not cordially like his presence in the galley at any time, since it stood to reason he clapped a stopper on any kind of free conversation; but they were used to him. They might not always like what they were used to, but it was dead certain that they would always loathe what they were not used to: and they were not used to this new Doctor. The Leopards might crack him up, and he might in fact be handy with both saw and pill, but at present the Flitches (for Flitches were they called) only wished that he might fall down dead.
In time this was borne in upon Dr Maturin, not by any words or even by wry looks, but by sheer moral force alone; he threw his half-smoked cheroot into the galley range and said, 'Come, colleague; let us go.'
This was the beginning of a close association; it was also the beginning of the pleasantest voyage that Maturin had ever made. The monsoon bore them steadily west and south over a limitless and amiable sea, with never an island, never a ship, and rarely a bird to recall them to any sense of the terrestrial, clouds their only companions. It was a sea-borne life, ordered by an exact sequence of bells and of naval rites: the sound of the decks being holy-stoned, swabbed, and flogged dry in the early morning, hammocks piped up, the forenoon tasks, the ceremony of noon itself, when a dozen sextants shot the sun from La Fl?e's crowded quarterdeck and Captain Yorke said 'Make it so, Mr Warner', the bosun and his mates piping the hands to dinner, the fifer fifing them to grog; then the drum for the gunroom's meal, the quiet afternoon, and the drum again for quarters and for retreat, the piping down of hammocks, and the setting of the watch. All these were perfectly familiar to Stephen; but what
