'Why, there was only one midshipman in the flagship pretty enough for a girl, but his voice was broke and he could not keep in tune neither; so for the part where she has to sing, I put on the dress and piped up with my back to the audience. But neither of us was going to be drowned and buried in real earth, Admiral or no Admiral, so that part fell to a youngster who could not defend himself; and that made three of us, do you see.' Jack smiled, his mind going back to the West Indies, where the performance had taken place; and after a while he sang:
'Young men will do't
An they come to't
By Cock they are to blame.
Yes, alas; and it all ended unhappy, as I recall.'
'So it did, too,' said Stephen, 'the pity of the world. I believe I shall go upstairs again, if there is no more coffee left. I should be sorry to miss any of the Baltic's wonders, they being, as you might say, some compensation for all the grief there is by land.'
More eiders he saw, and later in the day, off the island of Saltholm, some very curious sea-duck that he could not identify, that he had no time to identify, for the breeze had freshened steadily, and now the Ariel was running at eight knots. It was vexing, but on the other hand without this fine turn of speed she would never have reached Falsterbo with enough light for a perfect view of a white-tailed eagle, an enormous bird in full adult plumage that plucked a fish from the sea not twenty yards from the Ariel's stern; and then again her pace meant that no flotilla of gunboats, grim but slow, would attempt her.
'I am glad to hear it,' he said, when Jack told him that the ship was now well out of their range; that she was now steering to run between Bornholm and the main; and that if this breeze freshened still further, which seemed likely, they should join the Admiral in excellent time. 'I am glad to hear it, because after today's excitement I should like a long quiet night to collect my ideas; for who knows what tomorrow may bring? Bearded swans, the phoenix himself, maybe. I shall turn in at once.'
No swans of any kind, no phoenix: a low sky, scudding cloud, a short choppy grey sea, and the Ariel tearing along under close-reefed topsails. As it increased in force the wind veered into the west and then north of west, cutting up a sea that gave her a strong corkscrewing motion, while at the same time she pitched violently at short, very short intervals, working so that she spewed her oakum from the knightheads to the bitts. Stephen's stomach had withstood the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian oceans, but the Baltic very nearly overcame him. He was not actually sick, but he exhibited a cold, copious salivation, a dislike for jovial company, facetiousness or merriment, and an intolerance of the notion of food. It was probably that nasty fish of yesterday, he thought; bursten-bellied fish might very well convey all manner of noxious principles; only a fool would eat them. And only a fool would go to sea, exposing his frame to the falling damps. He kept the deck for the most part of the forenoon. There it was not so much a question of falling as of horizontal damps, for every time the Ariel plunged her head into a sea sheets of spray and even solid water swept aft, piercing his armour at every joint, so that in time he was wet as well as cold, wet through and through.
'Perhaps I shall go and see my colleague and beg ten drops of the sulphureous ether; or failing that, a little acid of sulphur, dulcified,' he said to himself. The man is a very mere sot, but at least he has a medicine-chest, and he turned to find a quarterdeck messenger to show him the way, a jolly pink child who wore a winged cap such being the Ariel's whim. As they went below he heard a cry of 'Sail ho! A cat two points on the starboard bow, but he never paused. They had sighted another sail earlier in the day, a Dane for sure said the officers who had cruised the Baltic all last summer in the Ariel; but with infinite reluctance Jack had let her run; his business was far too urgent for him to be chasing prizes, and it would be the same with this one. In any case Stephen was not in the least interested in a prize; all he wanted was sulphureous.
Alas, he found the mere sot in much the same state as himself, only worse: speechless, careless of the world, pale green, unshaven malodorous; and what was far more regrettable he had drunk up all the ships sulphureous ether, and had spilt the sulphuric acid. It was now eating its way through his counterpane, but he did not mind: the sooner it ate its way through the bottom of the ship the better, he whispered.
Stephen left him in disgust, and turning on the boy who had shown him the way to Mr Grahams cabin he said 'See what comes of your heathenish superstitious custom of whistling: your own surgeon sick, for shame. Let the Captain be told that I am retiring to meditate, and that I beg to be excused from dining.'
He had not taken breakfast; he did not dine; he did not share the Captain's tea; and when at last the Ariel shot into the calm waters of Carlscrona and saluted the Admiral he felt cold, glum, and weak; so weak indeed that when Ariel's gig was alongside the flagship and he himself clambering awkwardly aboard, the manrope slipped from his hand and he fell, dropping like a sack. But Jack had prepared for this: his old friend was no seaman, never had been and never would be a seaman; from the beginning of their acquaintance he had fallen from motionless ships and spars, motionless boats; and more than once he had even plunged between ship and boat when going up the side. Captain Aubrey had therefore given orders that the gig should hook on to the flagship as tight as a limpet and that two powerful seamen should stand at the foot of the accommodation-ladder 'in case anyone should take a tumble'. These men, who knew very well what o'clock it was, caught Dr Maturin's frail body as easily as a corded hammock - it weighed little more - and propelled him up the side again, urging him 'to clap on with both hands, sir - never say die - one more heave and we're home, safe and dry.'
The Captain of the Fleet received them: received them coldly, observing that the Admiral was not at leisure, and that if Ariel were to be attached to the Baltic squadron, he would thank Captain Aubrey to wear an ensign of the proper colour. Sir James had recently been promoted vice-admiral of the red, which any man might have discovered by taking a little trouble. The reception was roughly what Jack had expected ever since he heard that Manby was Captain of the Fleet: in the course of his career, and particularly during the fierier, more undisciplined early stages of it, he had made many solid, reliable friends and some solid, reliable enemies, Manby being one of them.'
Yet this disagreeable impression did not last for long. A few minutes later a number of Swedish officers left the ship and the Admiral's secretary, a grave young parson, showed Jack and Stephen into the great cabin, a not'le room, although at present it looked more like a busy office than part of a man-of-war - files everywhere, a desk covered with papers, and behind the desk a pale Admiral, himself more like a jaded, work-worn minister than a sea-officer.
He was obviously tired, but he greeted them cordially. 'It must be years since we met, Captain Aubrey,' he said, having congratulated Jack on his rapid passage.
'The last time was at Gibraltar, sir, just after your splendid victory in the Gut,' said Jack.
'Yes, yes,' said Sir James. 'The Lord was good to us that day.'
Stephen had been a spectator of that bloody affair: he thought the violent death of two thousand Frenchmen and Spaniards an odd proof of the Lord's goodness, but he had known other able men with the Admiral's view of divine Providence. During the brief interval while Jack delivered his dispatches before introducing him, he studied
