'That has not yet been publicly given out,' said Stephen. 'But I understand it to be the far side of the world: I have heard mention of Batavia.'
'Oh,' said Higgins, his exultation momentarily checked, for Batavia was most notoriously unhealthy, even worse than the West Indies, where whole ship's companies might die of the yellow jack. 'Yet even so I should be delighted at the prospect of repairing my fortunes in a ship commanded by such a famous prize-taker.'
It was true. In his time Jack Aubrey had taken a very great many prizes, so many indeed that he was called Lucky Jack Aubrey in the service. As a young commander in the awkward little fourteen-gun brig Sophie he had filled Port Mahon harbour with French and Spanish merchantmen, harrying the enemy trade in the most desperate fashion; and when a thirty-two gun xebec-frigate called the Cacafuego was sent out especially to put an end to his capers he captured her too and added her to the rest. Then as a frigate captain he had taken a Spanish treasure- ship among other things, and he had had a large share in the spoils of the Mauritius, together with its recaptured Indiamen, among the richest prizes in the sea. To be sure, the Admiralty had taken the Spanish treasure away from him on the pretext that war had not been legally declared, while in his simplicity he had allowed various dishonest landsmen to cheat him out of much of the Mauritius wealth and so involve his remaining fortune that neither he nor his lawyers could tell whether he would be able to retain any of it at all; but in spite of this he still had much of the aura of Lucky Jack Aubrey as well as the nickname.
Mr Higgins was not alone in wishing to become rich, and as the news of the Surprise's prospect of a long voyage spread a great many people applied to go with her; for at this stage of the war it was only frigates that could hope for those glorious encounters in which a man might earn a hundred years' pay in an afternoon. At the same time a number of parents and other relations showed a strong inclination to place their boys on the quarterdeck of one of the outstanding frigate-captains, a man with a remarkable fighting-record and one known for his care in bringing up his midshipmen - a strong desire to send them aboard the Surprise even if she were going to the fetid, fever-ridden swamps of Java.
When Jack had commanded the ship in the Mediterranean he had hardly been importuned at all, since it was known to be nothing more than a temporary command for one or two specific missions; but even now that the case was altered (at least to some degree) this was still not one of those long commissions in which he could settle down to the forming of young gentlemen. With reasonable luck he should intercept the Norfolk well before the Horn, and even if he did not he hoped to be back in a few months' time: he would therefore have refused all youngsters but for the fact that he had a son himself, young George, whose future he had ensured by making various captains promise to take him aboard when the time was ripe; and now, when these captains or their near kin asked him to do the same he could not very well refuse. Nor could he in decency dwell on the unhealthiness of Batavia, since he knew very well that he was not going there - the whole thing was a mild ruse on Stephen's part, aimed at disguising their movements from the probable foreign agents on or near the Rock and the certain neutrals who passed up and down the Strait, often calling in for stores and gossip. The result was that he now had four little boys in addition to Calamy and Williamson, four squeakers, pleasant, reasonably clean, well -mannered sons of naval families, but still a sad trial to him. 'I tell you what it is,' he said to Stephen at one of their rare meetings in the town, when they were both buying strings, rosin and sheet-music, 'I shall have to ship a schoolmaster. With Calamy and Williamson, that makes six of the little beasts, and although I can teach them navigation when things are quiet and beat them whenever they need it, it seems a poor shabby thing to send them out into the world without a notion of history or French or hic haec hoc. Seamanship is a very fine thing, but it is not the only quality, particularly by land, and I have often felt my own want of education - I have often envied those fellows who can dash off an official letter that reads handsome and rattle away in French and throw out quotations in Latin or even God help us in Greek - fellows who know who Demosthenes was, and John o' Groats. You can cut me down directly with a Latin tag. And it is no good telling an ordinary healthy boy to sit down with his Gregory's Polite Education or Robinson's Abridgment of Ancient History: without he is a phoenix like St Vincent or Collingwood he needs a schoolmaster to keep him to it.'
'I wonder whether you sea-officers may not rate literature too high,' said Stephen. 'Though to be sure I have known some sea-going boobies who can conduct their ships to the Antipodes and back with nicely-adjusted sails but who are incapable of giving a coherent account of their proceedings even by word of mouth, let alone in writing, shame on them.'
'Just so: and that is what I want to avoid. But both the schoolmasters I have seen are mere mathematicians, and drunken brutes into the bargain.'
'Have you thought of asking Mr Martin, at all? He is not very strong in the mathematics, though I believe he now understands the elements of navigation; but he speaks very fair French, his Latin and Greek are what you would expect in a parson, and he is a man of wide reading. He is unhappy in his present ship, and when I told him that we were going to the far side of the world - for I was no more exact than that - he said he would give his ears to go with us. Yes: 'would give both my ears' was his expression.'
'He is a parson, of course, and the hands reckon parsons unlucky,' said Jack, considering. 'And most seagoing parsons are a pretty rum lot. But then they are used to Mr Martin; they like him as a man - and so of course do I, a most gentlemanlike companion - and they do like to have church rigged regularly... I have never shipped a parson of my own free will: but Martin is different. Yes, Martin is quite different: he may be holier than thou, but he never thrusts it down thy throat; and I have never seen him drunk. If he was speaking seriously, Stephen, pray tell him that should the transfer be possible, I should be very happy to have his company to the far side of the world.'
'To the far side of the world,' he repeated to himself, smiling, as he walked towards the old mole: and on the far side of the street he saw an uncommonly handsome young woman. Jack had always had a quick eye for a pretty face but she had seen him even sooner and she was looking at him with particular insistence. She was certainly not one of the many Gibraltar whores (though she brought carnal thoughts to mind) and when their eyes met she modestly dropped her own, though not without a kind of discreet inward smile. Had that first insistent look been a signal that he would not be too fiercely repelled if he boarded her? He could not be sure, though she was certainly no bread-and-butter miss. At an earlier age, when he accepted any challenge going and some that were not going at all, he would have crossed over to find out; but now, as a post-captain with an appointment to be kept, he remained on his own pavement, only giving her a keen, appreciative glance as they passed. A fine black- eyed young person, and there was something distinctive about her walk, as though she were a little stiff from riding. 'Perhaps I shall see her again,' he thought, and at that moment he was hailed by another young woman, not quite so handsome, but very plump and jolly: she was Miss Perkins, who usually sailed with Captain Bennet in the Berwick when the Berwick's chaplain was not on board. They shook hands, and she told him 'that Harry was hoping to get his grum old parson to take a long, long leave, and then they would escort the Smyrna trade up the Med again among all those delicious islands how lovely'. But when she asked him to dine with them he was obliged to refuse: alas, it was not in his power, for he was already bespoke, and must in fact run like a hare this very minute.
Heneage Dundas was the bespeaker, and they dined very comfortably together in a small upstairs room at Reid's, looking down into Waterport Street and passing remarks about their friends and acquaintances as they went by below.
'There is that ass Baker,' said Dundas, nodding in the direction of the captain of the Iris. 'He came aboard me yesterday, trying to get one of my hands, a forecastleman called Blew.'
