disappearance would probably cause a certain amount of anxiety among the French, Wray should still be able to make a clean sweep. She was by no means the first young woman to bolt with a lover on the approach of her husband, and the anxiety would not lead to any very drastic measures.
At breakfast then he observed his companions. A certain constraint might be put down to their Captain's presence, unusual at this time of day; but a very real awkwardness persisted after he had left them. Stephen detected embarrassment, a sort of admiration or rather a new kind of respect, and on the part of Gill at any rate some degree of moral disapproval; and drinking his coffee he sighed for deserving none of these things.
After a quick look at his mercifully empty sickbay while the loblolly-boy tolled his bell overhead for those who might feel themselves pale or poorly, and tolled in vain, Stephen retired with a phial of the tincture of laudanum and Pocock's notes on the Dey of Mascara. From these he learnt that the Dey was the ruler of a small but quite powerful state, nominally subject to the Sultan of Turkey but in fact as independent as Algiers or even more so; that although Mascara was the traditional capital, the Dey's principal residence was at Zambra, the port through which all the trade of the country passed; that French agents were active . . . unusually active . . . unusually successful . . . and with this he went to sleep.
Both he and Laura slept throughout the day, through the various dinners served aboard and through all the noise of the wind and the sea and the working of the ship; and this caused a certain amount of ribald comment fore and aft. Stephen slept the longer of the two, but when at last he came on deck he found that he was in time for an evening so perfect that it made all foul weather seem worth while: with a flowing sheet and under an easy sail the Surprise was slipping through the sea: and such a sea, smooth, dreamlike, limitless, with an infinity of subtle nacreous colours merging into one another and a vast pure sky overhead. It was one of those days when there was no horizon; it was impossible to tell at what point in the pearly haze the sea met the sky, and this increased the sense of immensity. The breeze was just abaft the beam and it hummed gently in the rigging, while the water slid down the ship's side with a soft lipping sound, the whole making a kind of sea-silence. Yet the feeling of total remoteness and isolation changed when he looked forward, for there, two cables lengths ahead, was the Pollux, an old worn-out battered sixty-four-gun ship, one of the last of her class; yet old and battered though she was, she made a noble sight with her towering array of canvas, her exactly-squared yards, her great ensign billowing away to leeward and all the complex marine geometry of curve and straight line lit by the low sun on her starboard bow.
'Sir,' said Calamy at his side, 'Mrs Fielding wishes to show you Venus.'
'Venus, is it?' said Stephen; and to his surprise he observed that not only was Calamy wearing his frilled shirt but that he had also washed his face, a ceremony usually reserved for dinner invitations or for those Sundays when church was rigged. Indeed, as he moved aft to where Mrs Fielding was sitting on Jack's elbow-chair near the taffrail he noticed that most of the officers had their uniform coats on, that all of them were shaved, and that all of them were present.
'Come and see!' she called, waving Jack's smaller telescope. 'It's just to the left of the mainyard. A star in daylight! Did you know she was like a crescent moon only small, oh so small?'
'Little do I know about Venus,' said Stephen, 'except that she is an inferior planet.'
'Oh fie,' cried she, and the purser, the Marine and Jack made a number of gallant and sometimes quite witty remarks. Mowett and Rowan, however, who might have been expected to shine with uncommon brilliance, remained mute, smiling and gazing and chuckling to themselves until the quartermaster at the con called out in a loud official voice to the sentry 'Turn the glass and strike the bell.'
These words and the brisk double note recalled Mowett to his duty and he said 'For quarters, sir, do you choose to make a clean sweep fore and aft today?'
Every evening of her life under Captain Aubrey's command the Surprise had cleared for action, had cleared in the fullest sense of the term, as if she were really going into battle, with the bulkheads of his cabins vanishing, the great guns in them being run out, and all his belongings hurrying below. But this would necessarily mean disrupting Mrs Fielding's frail economy, and after a moment's consideration Jack said 'Perhaps for today we may content ourselves with rattling the forward guns in and out; and then if Pollux reefs topsails or shifts topgallants we may do the same.'
In fact the Surprise never made a single clean sweep fore and aft in the six days of her voyage to Zambra, six days of the sweetest sailing that Jack had ever known. Without the lumbering old Pollux she would have accomplished the run in perhaps two days less, and all hands would have regretted it bitterly. These six days, with mild warm prosperous breezes, a gentle sea, and (since their pace was regulated by the Pollux) none of that harassing sense of urgency which marred so many naval journeys - these six days might have been taken out of ordinary time, might not have belonged to the common calendar: it was not exactly holiday, for there was plenty to do; but for once the Surprises did have a moment, even a fair number of moments, to lose; though this was not the only factor by any means nor yet the main one.
Some of these moments they devoted to the adornment of their persons. Williamson went beyond Calamy in washing the greater part of his neck as well as his face and hands, a striking gesture, since they possessed only one nine-inch pewter basin between them and almost no fresh water; and they both appeared in clean shirts every day. For that matter the quarterdeck as a whole became a model of correct uniform, like that of the Victory when St Vincent had her - loose duck trousers, round jackets and the common broad-brimmed low-crowned straw hats against the sun called benjies gave way either to breeches or at least to blue pantaloons and boots and to good blue coats and regulation scrapers, while the foremast hands often sported the red waistcoats reserved for Sunday and splendid Levantine neckerchiefs. Profane oaths, cursings and execrations (forbidden in any event by the second Article of War) were laid aside or modified, and it was pleasant to hear the bosun cry 'Oh you . . . unskilful fellow' when a hand called Faster Doudle, staring aft at Mrs Fielding, dropped a marline-spike from the maintop, very nearly transfixing Mr Hollar's foot. Punishment, in the sense of flogging at the gangway, was also laid aside; and though this was of no great consequence in a ship that so very rarely saw the cat, the general sense of relaxation and indulgence might have done great harm to discipline to the Surprise had she not had an exceptional ship's company. She always had been a happy ship; now she was happier still; and it occurred to Stephen that a really handsome, thoroughly good-natured but totally inaccessible young woman, changed at stated intervals, before familiarity could set in, would be a very valuable addition to any man-of-war's establishment.
On most evenings the hands danced and sang on the forecastle until well on in the first watch, while until much later in the night Jack and Stephen played in the cabin or on the quarterdeck or listened with the rest while Mrs Fielding sang, accompanying herself on a mandoline that belonged to Honey.
She was early invited to dine with the gunroom, and when it was understood that she regretted having nothing to wear no less than three gentlemen sent their most respectful compliments and lengths of the famous silky crimson cloth of Santa Maura, which the Surprise had recently visited: cloth originally intended for their mothers, sisters, or wives, and from which she made a most becoming dress, Killick and the sailmaker sewing the hems to have it ready in time. She was looked upon with a strong, affectionate admiration, and although it was generally believed that she had run off with the Doctor, what little moral condemnation there was aboard pointed not at her but at him. Even Mr Gill, a melancholy, withdrawn, puritanical man, replied 'Only three days, alas, if this breeze holds,' when she asked him how long it would take them to reach Cape Raba, the term of the first stage of their journey.
