could have sworn that Duff would have been most attractive to women. Yet the same, he reflected, might have been said of Achilles. His mind wandered over the varieties of this aspect of sexuality - the comparatively straightforward Mediterranean approach; the very curious molly-shops around the Inns of Court; the sense of furtive guilt and obsession that seemed to increase with every five or ten degrees of northern latitude. On the other side of the table, not directly opposite Stephen but one place up, sat Francis Howard of the Aurora, perhaps the best Greek scholar in the Navy: he had spent three happy years in the eastern Mediterranean, collecting inscriptions, and Stephen had hoped to sit next to him. On Howard's right he saw Smith of the Camilla and Michael Fitton, both brown-faced, roundheaded, cheerful, intelligent-looking young men of a kind quite usual in the service. They could never have been taken for soldiers. Why did the Navy attract men with round heads? What had the phrenologist Gall to say? Stephen's right-hand neighbour, Captain Thomas, was round-headed too, and deeply tanned: but he was neither young nor cheerful. After a very long career as a commander, chiefly in the West Indies, he had been made post into the Eusebio, 32, which was destroyed in the hurricane of 18o9; and now he commanded the Thames. He was the oldest man present, and his authoritarian face was set in an expression of disapproval - perpetually cross. He was known in the service as the Purple Emperor.
'Sir,' murmured a familiar voice in Stephen's ear, 'you've got your sleeve in your dinner.' It was Plaice, forecastleman, wearing white gloves and a mess-servant's jacket.
'Thank you, Joe,' said Stephen, taking it out and mopping it busily, with an anxious look at Killick.
'Capital soup, sir,' said Duff, smiling at him.
'The true ambrosia, sir, in the right place,' said Stephen, 'but perhaps a little unctuous on black broadcloth. May I trouble you for a piece of bread? It may do better than my napkin.'
They talked away, agreeing very well; and when, after the first remove, a roast loin of veal was put down in front of Stephen he said 'Sir, allow me to cut you a piece.'
'You are very good, sir. There are few things I dread more than having to carve.'
'For you, sir?' asked Stephen, turning to Thomas.
'If you please,' said the Purple Emperor. 'Why, you slice as trim as a surgeon.'
'But then I am a surgeon, sir: so it is no virtue. The surgeon of the Commodore's flagship, if that is the right expression. My name is Maturin.'
Joe Plaice uttered a loud, coarse laugh, attempted to be smothered with a white kid glove. Stephen and Duff glanced back at him with a smile. Thomas looked furious. 'Oh, indeed,' he said, 'I had imagined that this was a dinner for commissioned officers, for officers in command,' and spoke no more.
'Sophie, my dear,' said Stephen next morning, 'that was a sumptuous feast you gave us. When next I see Father George I shall have to admit to the sin of greed, of deliberate, premeditated greed. I returned to the venison pasty not once but three times. So did Captain Duff. We encouraged one another.'
'I am so glad you enjoyed it,' said she, looking upon him fondly. 'But how I regret your having to sit next to that cross old stick. Jack says he is always finding fault, always against everything; and like many of those West Indies spit-and-polish captains he thinks that if he can drive his people so hard that they are able to shift topgallant masts in thirteen minutes and make all the brass shine like gold day and night they must necessarily beat any of the heavy Americans, to say nothing of the Frenchmen. He is going to try to persuade the Admiral to make an exchange.'
'If you please, sir, Captain Tom has the dog-cart at the door,' said George.
'But he said nine,' cried Stephen, bringing out his watch, his beloved Breguet. Although it was of the perpetual kind and more reliable than the Bank of England, he shook it twice. The platinum mass that kept it always wound gave a muffled answer, but the hands still said ten minutes past the hour. 'God's my life,' he said. 'It is ten minutes past the hour. Sophie, forgive me, I must run.'
As a commander and a post-captain Jack Aubrey had never discussed the officers of his own ship with Stephen: as a commodore he had told him about Duff, but rather in the medical line than otherwise. He might also have spoken of the Purple Emperor's shortcomings, since the earlier rule did not apply - Stephen and the Emperor were not messmates, more or less tied by a wardroom loyalty - but it was unlikely that he should do so right away.
Tom Pullings had no such inhibitions. He had known Stephen since he was a midshipman and he had always talked to him without the least restraint. 'That cove should never have risen above master's mate,' he said as they drove towards Portsmouth on a sweet morning, talking about last night's dinner and their fellow guests. 'He should never have been given authority: he don't know what to do with it so he is for ever giving orders to show that he does. He is always ill-used, always in a rage with someone. You get fathers of families like that. Always someone due for a flogging or kept to bread and water or sent to bed for tittering at the wrong moment. He makes life hell for everyone else in the ship, and to judge by his vinegar headpiece it is not much better for himself. Him and his dignity! Lord Nelson never topped it the dignified don't-talk-to-me kind of nob. If you fart on this man's quarterdeck even to leeward as is but right you have insulted the King's representative. Bah. And he has never been in action.'
'To be fair, nor have most sea-officers.'
'No. But he thinks that those that have, hands and all, hold it against him and laugh behind his back: so he takes it out on them, as well as everybody else. How I hope the Commodore will get rid of him. We need a fighting captain in this squadron, not the first lieutenant of a royal yacht, with his double-blacked yards - a skipper whose people can fire their guns and who will follow him like the Sophies followed us - God love us, that was a day!' Tom laughed, remembering the tall side of the Spanish thirty-two-gun frigate and the way he and his fifty-three shipmates from the fourteen-gun sloop Sophie had swarmed up it after Jack Aubrey, defeating the three hundred and nineteen Spaniards aboard and carrying their ship a prize into Port Mahon.
'So it was, too,' said Stephen.
'What is more,' said Tom, 'the Thames's gunner told our gunner they had not used up even their practice allowance this last eight months: the guns were rattled in and out now and then, but only in dumb-show; and he doubted - he fairly wept when he said so - they could fire two broadsides in five minutes. Anything for pretty decks and perfect paint.'
'Have you anything against Captain Thomas personally, Commodore?' asked the Admiral. 'Do you feel he may possibly lack conduct?'
'Oh not at all, sir. I have no doubt he is as brave as a...'
'A lion?'
