instances of Ariadne, Beaver, Hecate and Fly, which clapped a stopper over all.'
'Jack, I hope and trust you did not commit yourself?'
'No. Like King Charles, I do not want to go on my travels again - Lord, they were bitter travels, Stephen - and I kept as cool as a judge. Or as cool as a judge ought to be,' he said, remembering a malignant rambling red-faced ranting old fool at Guildhall in a judge's wig and gown.
'When you say they, do you mean the soldiers?'
'No. It is the civilians, the people who have been in the colony a long while and who are well entrenched, together with their allies. They are called the Macarthur clan, and they can make Colonel MacPherson sign any paper they put in front of him. The young fellow I sent away just now brought a note saying that to prevent any further unfortunate incident the authorities intended placing sentries at the brows - a note MacPherson had had to put his name to and the unfortunate lieutenant had to bring. This is one of the reasons we are about to cast off fore and aft and warp out into the cove again. I am damned if I walk in and out of my own ship between a couple of redcoats. But there is another reason too,' he went on in a lower tone. 'That young fool Hopkins, maintopman, starboard watch, smuggled a girl aboard last night, a ticket-of-leave barmaid. By a great stroke of luck West happened to hear her giggling in the cable-tier and we smuggled her ashore again in double-quick time, unseen. Hopkins is in irons, and I shall have the hide off him as soon as we are warped out.'
'Oh no, Jack; no more flogging in this horrible place, I beseech you.'
'Eh? Well, no; perhaps not: I see what you mean. Come in,' he cried.
Reade, very grave, said, 'Captain Pullings' duty, sir, and all is laid along.'
'Thank you, Mr Reade,' said Jack. 'My compliments to Captain Pullings, and I desire he will carry on.'
A moment later nautical cries broke out on the quarterdeck with the due responses fore and aft, the whole interspersed with the sound of bosun's calls, now sharp and cutting, now an eerie wail: the complex process of getting a ship under way, with all its rituals. Jack's attention was fixed on the sequence of events and during this time Stephen considered his face: the whites of his eyes were yellowish; his stern expression had not softened at all at the sight of Reade, as it usually did; and although he had spoken with a good deal of anger it was clear that there was a great deal more as yet unexpressed. Even more than most sailors Jack resented any hint of disrespect to the service: this had been very gross, and it came in an atmosphere of evident ill-will.
The bars of the capstan had been shipped long since, and now it began turning, but with no great exertion, no fife or fiddle, only the sound of bare feet. The wharf slid gently aft, dwindling in size; the view from the scuttle opposite Stephen increased until Government House was within its frame; then the frigate turned eight points to starboard and there was Government House once more, together with much of the settlement, in the broad sweep of the stern window.
'I shall be glad to be out in the cove,' said Jack. 'It makes much more work, carrying and fetching, but even so, Stephen, you would not believe how stupid, reckless and wanton seamen can be. Here is Hopkins with his wench immediately after that wretched business with the soldiers, when a moment's reflexion would have told him that in the first place it was criminal on his part to bring her aboard at all and secondly that it would put us all in the wrong. And I have little doubt that if we had stayed tied up to the side some other young fool would have been at it again. Or half a dozen fools, young or old. You would not believe it.'
None of this was news to Stephen. He knew the consequences of a stay in port rather better than Jack and the extraordinary lengths to which men would go to satisfy their desires. He knew that this urge was concentrated by months at sea and perhaps by the injudicious diet - six pounds of meat a week, however indifferently preserved, was far too much -and even on the quarterdeck, where some degree of education might be expected to soften manners and inculcate restraint he had known officers risk a truly happy marriage in stupid, reckless and wanton fornication. This was no time to impart his knowledge to Jack, however: it was not even a time to ask him to put out his tongue and give an account of his entrails.
After a while he said, 'By the way, how are the little girls? I hope they have given you no trouble.'
'They are very well indeed, I believe; and no trouble at all. I have seen nothing of them, almost. They never come on deck until after dark for fear of being seized, but I hear them singing down below.'
'And what of Paulton? Did you have any news of him while we were away?'
'Oh yes,' said Jack, his face brightening somewhat. 'He called to take leave some days ago: he has to go back to his cousin's place along the coast, not far from Bird Island. He hoped we would come to see him by boat, or if that were impossible, that you would look in on him during your northern trip. What a very agreeable evening we had with him, upon my word! Such a jovial companion, and such a hand with his violin. How glad I was I insisted upon playing second fiddle: even so, he put me to the blush.'
News that the ship was moored came below, and presently Stephen said, 'Jack, tomorrow I must wait on Mrs Macquarie and try to make my excuses at last. But before that, before breakfast indeed, I should like to examine you to find whether your plethory is wholly digested, and prescribe physic if it is not.'
'Very well. But I tell you what it is, Stephen: we sail on the twenty-fourth. Even if the Governor is back by then, which I think very likely, and even if everything then goes more smoothly, which I think possible, I have decided to renounce some of the repairs and to sail with the change of the moon: I am sorry if it cuts your journey short or interferes with your plans.'
'Not at all. I shall start a little earlier, tomorrow itself, perhaps; and unless we are devoured by some nondescript wild beast or get lost in the worst kind of bush, to which the Labyrinth is child's play and the maze at Hampton Court an inconsiderable toy, we shall be back on the twenty-third. I shall tell Padeen when we pass by Paulton's place.'
'What now?' called Jack, turning to the door.
'Here's a damned thing, sir,' cried Pullings. 'The guards at South Point insisted on examining the blue cutter - tried to stop it - Oakes who was in charge said he would blow out the brains of the first man that laid a hand on the gunwale.'
'Quite right too. The boat was wearing a jack?'
'Yes, sir.'
'That makes it more monstrous still. I shall report it to the Admiralty; I shall raise it in the House. Hell and death, they will be opening my letters and dispatches next, and sleeping in my cot.'
Once more Stephen, brushed, dressed, shaved and powdered to the height of Killick's lofty standards, sent in
