'I had thought of remedying it, at least to some extent, by making Oakes acting-lieutenant.'
'Oh no, sir!' cried Pullings: he flushed, and his dreadful scar showed livid across his face.
'It would add to the number at your table and make rudeness, gross incivility, less easy; it would put him on an even footing, which would prevent any officer from riding him and so angering the hands in Oakes's division; he would stand his own watch, which would make him independent. He is quite seaman enough, for blue-water sailing.'
'Yes, sir,' said Pullings; and then barely audible in his embarrassment and protesting that he did not mean to carry tales or inform on anyone, he said 'But that would mean Mrs Oakes messing with us.'
'Of course. That is a part of my argument.'
'Well sir ... some of the officers are sweet on Mrs Oakes.'
'I dare say they are - a very amiable young woman.'
'No, sir. I mean serious - bloody serious - cut-your-throat serious - fucking serious ...'
'Oh.' Jack Aubrey was taken aback entirely. 'But you surely do not mean that last word literally?'
'No, sir. It is just my coarse way of speaking: I beg pardon.
But so serious that if she were there at the table day after day...'
After a silence Jack said 'The husband is always the last to know, they say. I am talking of myself, as being married to the barky, you understand. The sods. But I am sure she never gave them any encouragement. Well, Tom, thank you for letting me know: I see things in a new light now. Yes, indeed. Now passing on to the shameful bungling this morning, I shall speak to the officers concerned but there were also some hands who behaved ill: sullen and unwilling: neglect of duty. You must prepare a list and I must deal with them; a damned unpleasant business.' He walked over to his chart-table and measured off the distance yet to run to Moahu. 'We must pull them together before there is any question of action,' he said. 'Tom, will you dine with me and the Doctor tomorrow? And perhaps I might ask Martin and the Oakeses.'
'Thank you, sir. I should be very happy.'
'I shall look forward to it, too. And Tom, pray tell West and Davidge that I wish to see them.'
They were both expecting the summons. Jack had left the unmooring to them while he and Pullings finished their business with Wainwright below, and he had come on deck to find an everyday manoeuvre being shockingly bungled. But they had not expected this degree of cold fury nor the far-reaching nature of his observations. 'I am speaking to you about your public life,' he said. 'You know perfectly well that public ill-will stirs up division and brings discredit on a ship: you also know that officers' disagreements in wardroom or gunroom are public, since the mess servants tell their mates directly, so that they affect the whole ship's company even if they are kept under hatches, since any officer with a division has a following among the hands in his charge. But you have not even attempted to keep things under hatches. You are openly, blatantly, rude to one another, and you ride Oakes in a way that causes great resentment among his men, whom he looks after very well. Obviously, since your messmates are not talebearers, I have had no idea of your conduct in the gunroom; but you cannot deny that I have given you many a hint, aye and many an open check these last weeks about your rudeness and incivility on deck. One result of all this ill-feeling, division and contention was today's disgraceful exhibition when I came on deck and found you wrangling like a couple of fish-fags and the ship looking like Bartholomew fair: and all this in the presence of the Daisy's master and her people. I can only thank God there was no King's ship by. Imagine such a state of affairs in action! Another result was that you disgraced the ship in your entertainment to Mrs Oakes and her husband: you, both of you, West and Davidge, made your dislike of one another staringly obvious. You showed no respect for your guests in what was essentially a public function. For my own part I have just declined Captain Pullings' invitation for tomorrow.'
'I was half stunned at the time, sir,' said Davidge.
'No doubt you presented your excuses to Oakes the next morning?' said Jack. Davidge reddened, but made no reply. 'As for your personal, private disagreements I have nothing to say. But I do absolutely insist upon your keeping up public appearances, officerlike outward appearances: in the gunroom when any hands are present, on deck at all times. I say nothing about my report to the Admiralty, but I do promise you this: unless I find you have taken great notice of my words by the time we have dealt with Moahu, by God you shall sow what you have reaped, and I shall supersede you by two of the master-mariners from before the mast. We have at least a score. That will do.'
'Dearest Sophie,' he wrote, 'A captain worth his name knows a great deal about his ship, her capabilities, her stores, her weaknesses and so on; and common daily observation shows him his people's seamanship and fighting qualities: but he lives so far from his officers and men that unless he listens to tale-bearers there is a great deal he does not know. These last weeks I have been worried by the obvious ill-will in the gunroom and its bad effects on discipline; I had both directly and indirectly told them to be more civil, but only this morning did Tom, horribly confused at informing on his messmates, tell me the reason for this ill-will. I had thought it the usual weariness of a long commission with the same faces, the same jokes, perhaps sharpened by some foolish raillery carried too far, losses at cards, chess, arguments - but all this carried much farther than I should ever have let it go. I am much to blame. Yet this morning, just before I called them in to reprove them for the horrible mess they had made of unmooring the ship, Tom let me know that they hated one another because of Mrs Oakes; and that it would not do to give Oakes an order as acting-lieutenant, because with her at the table their rivalry might well break bounds.
'It is a shame that such a modest, well-conducted woman should be so persecuted, and kept to the dismal solitary messing of the midshipmen's berth; I am sure she has given no encouragement, even in the most harmless usual shipboard way, has never said 'Pray do up this button for me; my fingers are all thumbs,' or 'I hope you do not think my tucker too low.' No. And at a most discreditable dinner the gunroom gave for her, with half her hosts as mute as fishes, she kept things going most courageously. I do like courage in a woman. By the way, I was quite mistaken about Stephen, when I feared he might be too fond: they went for a walk in the country yesterday and came back so pleased and affectionate together, carrying some extraordinary flowers and a bag of Stephen's birds and beetles. I have a mind to ask her and her husband to dine tomorrow, to mark the point; but I am not sure. I was so angered by seeing the ship exposed and mishandled this morning that I have little heart for entertaining; and Oakes himself, though a tolerable seaman, is a shocking drag. I shall ask Stephen: he is examining her in his cabin at this minute.'
Although Jack and Stephen had played some deeply satisfying music that evening, Stephen sitting with his feet braced against the heel of the ship on a batten shipped for the purpose and Jack standing to play his fiddle, the Captain woke early in the morning watch on Sunday with the humiliation of his ship's disgrace still strong in his mind, and a clear recollection of Wainwright's silent astonishment and tactfully averted eyes when they came on deck. The wind had begun dropping through the middle watch, as some inner recorder told him, and he was not at all surprised to find the ship ghosting along under limp, dew-soaked sails over a grey sea with barely a ripple on
