'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I was below throughout the battle. I regret my ignorance, but -,
'But surely,' said Mr Jack, the Shannon's surgeon, 'surely you must have heard when the vangs parted? Surely some casualty must have spoken to you of the vangs?'
'The Captain's compliments to Doctor Maturin,' said a tall master's mate, hurrying in, 'and he begs the pleasure of his company at dinner.'
'Mr Cosnahan,' said Stephen, shaking his hand, 'I am delighted to see you again, evidently healthy, apparently sober. My compliments to Captain Broke, and I shall be happy to wait upon him.'
The higher the rank, the later the dinner. Cosnahan was already greasy from his pudding in the midshipmen's berth before the gunroom had sat down to their boiled cod, and the cabin's meal was still no more than a remote, though not unpleasing, smell in the galley: Stephen had salivated in vain. He quietly slipped a biscuit from the bread-barge into his pocket and returned to Diana.
She was more prostrate than ever, now that the Shannon was out in her natural habitat, the full Atlantic swell: a cold, glaucous, apathetic figure, racked from time to time by a spasm but otherwise mute and apparently insensible. He had already undressed and sponged her, and there was nothing more that his art could do, apart from warm blankets. He tidied her a little, gazed thoughtfully a while, gnawing on his biscuit, and then went below to the cabin that his old shipmate Falkiner had vacated for him. He checked his papers, now wrapped in sailcloth, and remembering that he had spoken a little sharply in the night, he did what he could to make himself presentable, to do Jack credit in the cabin: clean and trimmed at last, he sat on Falkiner's cot, his newly-acquired watch in his hand, reflecting on Diana.
He had so very much to reflect upon, so very many aspects of a complex relationship, as well as marriage itself, that unknown state, that his thoughts had not run far beyond a long digression on the singular effects, physical and spiritual, of pregnancy, sometimes admirable, sometimes disastrous, before the elegant hands of the watch and a minute chime within told him that it was time to go. His night's sleep, short though it was, had been extraordinarily profound and restorative: his head still ached, he still found it hard to focus his eyes well enough to read, and his cracked ribs hurt abominably on the least false movement, but he was his own master for immediate purposes; he no longer had to struggle with a vacillating, uncertain, exhausted mind, incapable of decision; and although he could not see clearly as far as Diana was concerned, he was able to thrust his grief and sense of bereavement to one side.
On the way he met Cosnahan again, sent to fetch him, for Captain Aubrey placed no reliance on his surgeon's punctuality; but blameless for once and even commendable, he walked in with quiet triumph.
It was a good dinner - oysters, halibut, lobster, turkeypoult, and a massive roly-poly that gave the sailors at least a good deal of unaffected pleasure - and since most of the talk ran on nautical affairs Stephen had plenty of time to consider Captain Broke. He liked what he saw: a slight, dark man, reserved, quiet, grave, and even melancholy, not half Jack's weight but of much the same size in natural authority and determination. They were obviously close friends and at first glance this seemed paradoxical, their styles being so very different, the extremes of what was to be found in the service, as different as the centuries- Jack belonging more to the heartier, more flamboyant, hard-drinking eighteenth, Broke in the more discreet modern age that was spreading so fast, even in the conservative Navy. Yet they were both sailors, and on this plane they were as one; their ideas and their aims were both the same. Jack Aubrey was a fighting captain, made for the sea and violent action; so, in his different way, was Broke, and perhaps his sense of the Royal Navy's defeat was even stronger, if that were possible. He was a man of strong feelings, and although they rarely appeared the occasional gleam left Stephen in no doubt. This was particularly apparent when he and Jack talked about the Chesapeake, now the sole object of the Shannon's long blockade, the sole object of Broke's ambition and passionate desire. They had gone over every detail of her equipment before Stephen joined them, and Jack had been able to tell a great deal, from the exact nature of her carronades to a very close estimate of her crew, which he set at a little under four hundred. And now, when they discussed her commander Jack said, 'Lawrence is a very fine fellow, and I am sure that if his orders do not compel him to sit still, he will give you a meeting with all the pleasure in the world.'
'Oh how I hope so,' cried Broke with a fine flash. 'I have been waiting for him day after day, with our water running low - half allowance this last week, although I took all Tenedos could spare before sending her off - and the idea of being forced off the station, letting him out or leaving him to Parker, fairly tormented me. I sent in messages by various prisoners I discharged, inviting him to come out; but I dare say they never reached him. I was afraid he might be shy, or that he might share the feelings of so many people in New England.'
'Lawrence shy? Never in life,' said Jack emphatically.
'Well, I am heartily glad of it,' said Broke, and he went on to speak of the feeling in Boston, as far as he had been able to learn it. He had frequently been in touch with the shore and he had gathered a good deal of information, some of which confirmed what Stephen knew while some went well beyond it. 'The Federalist party certainly wish any event which would tend to restore peace,' he observed, 'and that I had from an intelligent person. But just how my man would define any event is a question. It is all very well to subscribe to a general dislike of the war and to give general information on the state of public opinion; but when it comes to specific details that might bring about a defeat, why then, I suppose, one must reflect that it is one's own country that is concerned, however ill-governed it may be. Now I know they have a steam-vessel, armed with six nine-pounders: but when it came to information on that head - her power, her speed, her range of action, the possibility of cutting her off with the boats - my man grew shy. When you were on shore, Doctor Maturin, were you able to make any remarks on this steam-boat of theirs?'
Alas, Dr Maturin had had no notion of such a vessel: had she indeed a steam-engine mounted in her? What was her means of propulsion?
'The engine drives great wheels on either side, sir, like those of a water-mill,' said Broke. 'A precious awkward thing to meet with in a calm or in a narrow tideway, since she can sail, not only against wind and tide, but without any wind at all.'
'With one long twenty-four-pounder in the bows, such a machine could cut you up quite shockingly,' said Jack. 'I mean, in light airs or a calm.'
The conversation ran on paddle-wheels - on the jet-propulsion advocated by Benjamin Franklin - on the steamer that Broke had seen on a Scotch canal during the peace - those in service upon the Hudson River -their probable value in war - their short range likely to be improved - the dangers of fire - Admiral Sawyer's fury at the suggestion that one might be used in Halifax harbour for towing - the probability that sailors should soon have to turn into vile mechanics, in spite of the Admiralty's steady hatred of such a disgraceful innovation - the shortcomings of the Admiralty in general.
Captain Broke was a well-bred man and he often tried to make the conversation general, but with little success: Stephen was usually quiet at meals, given to long fits of abstraction: now he was quieter still, not only from his ignorance of nautical affairs but also because sleep kept welling up and threatening to extinguish him entirely. His night, though restorative, had been short; its effects were wearing off; and he longed for the swinging cot below.
