'No,' said Jack. 'I have never heard of such a thing.' He reflected for some minutes, and at each lift of the frigate's bows the spray came sweeping aft. 'But quite apart from all this,' he went on, 'I finished the draft of my official letter this morning, before we came within gunshot, and I should be uncommonly obliged if you would look through it, strike out errors and anything low, and put in some stylish expressions, before Mr Adams makes his fair copies.'
'Sure I will put in what style there is at my command. But why do you say copies and why are you in haste? Whitehall is half the world away or even more for all love.'
'Because in these waters we may meet with a homeward-bound whaler any day.'
'Really? Really? Oh, indeed. Very well: I shall come as soon as our dinner is properly disposed of. And I shall write to Diana too.'
'Your dinner? Oh yes, of course: I do hope it goes well. You will be changing very soon, no doubt.' He had no doubt at all, because his steward Killick, who also looked after Dr Maturin on formal occasions, had made his appearance, standing at what he considered a respectful distance and fixing them with his shrewish, disapproving eye. He had been with them for many years, in all climates, and although he was neither very clever nor at all agreeable he had, by mere conviction of righteousness, acquired an ascendancy of which both were ashamed. Killick coughed. 'And if you should see Mr West,' added Jack, 'pray tell him I should like to see him for a couple of minutes. I do hope your dinner goes well,' he called after Stephen's back.
The dinner in question was intended to welcome Grainger, now Mr Grainger, to the gunroom; Stephen too hoped that it would go well, and although he ordinarily ate his meals with Jack Aubrey in the cabin he meant to take his place in the gunroom for this occasion: since in principle the surgeon was a gunroom officer his absence might be taken as a slight. Grainger, a reserved, withdrawn man, was much respected aboard, for although he had not belonged to the Surprise during her heroic days as a privateer, when she recaptured a Spaniard deep- laden with quicksilver, took an American commerce-raider and cut out the Diane from the harbour of St Martins, he was well known to at least half the crew. He had joined at the beginning of this voyage, very highly recommended by his fellow-townsmen of Shelmerston, a port that had provided the Surprise with scores of prime seamen, a curious little West Country place, much given to smuggling, privateering, and chapel-going. There were almost as many chapels as there were public houses, and Grainger was an elder of the congregation of Traskites, who met on Saturdays in a severe, sad-coloured building behind the rope-walk. Although the Traskites' views were controversial, he and the younger men who came aboard with him were perfectly at home in the Surprise, which was an ark of dissent, containing Brownists, Sethians, Arminians, Muggletonians and several others, generally united in a seamanlike tolerance when afloat and always in a determined hatred of tithes when ashore. Stephen was well acquainted with him as a shipmate and above all as a patient (two calentures, a broken clavicle) and he valued his many qualities; but he knew very well how such a man, dignified and assured in his own circle, could suffer when he was removed from it. Pullings would be kindness itself; so would Adams; but kindness alone was not necessarily enough with so vulnerable a man as Grainger. Martin would certainly mean well, but he had always been more sensitive to the feelings of birds than to those of men, and prosperity seemed to have made him rather selfish. Although he was sailing as Stephen's assistant he was in fact a clergyman and Jack had recently given him a couple of livings in his gift with the promise of a valuable third when it should fall in; Martin had all the particulars of these parishes and he discussed them over and over again, considering the possibility of different modes of gathering tithes or their equivalent and improvement of the glebes. But worse than the dullness of this conversation was a self-complacency that Stephen had never known in the penniless Martin of some years ago, who was incapable of being a bore. West he was not sure of. Here again there had been change: the moody, snappish, nail-biting West of their present longitude was quite unlike the cheerful young man who had so kindly and patiently rowed him about Botany Bay, looking for seaweed.
'Oh, Mr West,' he said, opening the gunroom door, 'before I forget it - the Captain would like to see you for a minute or two. I believe he is in the cabin.'
'Jesus,' cried West, looking shocked; then recollecting himself, 'Thank you, Doctor.' He ran into his cabin, put on his best coat, and hurried up the ladder.
'Come in,' called Jack.
'I understand you wish to see me, sir.'
'Oh yes, Mr West; but I shall not keep you a minute. Push those files aside and sit on the locker. I had meant to speak to you before, but I have been so taken up with paper-work that I have left it day after day: it is just to tell you that I was thoroughly satisfied with your conduct through our time at Moahu, particularly your exertion in getting the carronades up that infernal mountain: most officerlike. I have mentioned it in my official letter; and I believe that if only you had contrived to be wounded you might have been fairly confident of reinstatement. Perhaps you will do better next time.'
'Oh, I shall do my very best, sir,' cried West. 'Arms, legs, anything... and may I say how infinitely I am obliged to you for mentioning me, sir?'
'Mr Grainger, welcome to the gunroom,' said Tom Pullings, splendid in his uniform. 'Here is your place, next to Mr West. But first, messmates, let us drink to Mr Grainger's health.'
'Good health,' 'Hear him,' 'Huzzay,' and 'Welcome,' cried the other four, emptying their glasses.
'My dear love to you all, gentlemen,' said Grainger, sitting down in a good blue coat borrowed from his cousin the carpenter, looking pale under his tan, grim and dangerous.
But grimness could not withstand Pullings' and Stephen's good will, far less West's surprising flow of spirits: his happiness broke out in an extraordinary volubility - a thoroughly amiable volubility - and he rose high above his ordinary powers of anecdote and comic rhyme; and when he was not proposing riddles he laughed. There was no doubt that Grainger was pleased with his reception; he ate well, he smiled, he even laughed once or twice; but all the time Maturin saw his quick nervous eyes flitting from plate to plate, seeing just how the gunroom ate its dinner, managed its bread and drank its wine. Yet by pudding-time and toasts the anxiety was gone; Grainger joined in the song Farewell and adieu to you fine Spanish ladies and even proposed one of his own: As I walked out one midsummer's morning, for to view the fields and the flowers so gay.
'From what I could make out here on deck,' said Jack, when Stephen joined him for coffee, 'your dinner seemed quite a cheerful affair.'
'It went off as well as ever I had hoped,' said Stephen. 'Mr West was in a fine flow of spirits - jokes, riddles, conundrums, imitations of famous commanders, songs - I did not know he possessed such social gifts.'
'I am heartily glad of it,' said Jack. 'But Stephen, you look a little worn.'
'I am a little worn. All the more so for having first stepped on deck for a breath of air: the appearance of the ocean appalled me. I asked Bonden what he thought - was it often like this? He only shook his head and wished we might all be here come Sunday. Jack, what do you think? Have you considered it?'
