the horn was broken, when Bonden and Joe Plaice and a few others he had known for a great while, said ‘it was a cruel hard thing - they were very sorry for his trouble.’
That day Stephen dined in the gunroom, with Richard as his guest. The sense of well-being continued. Black desolation underlay it, as he knew perfectly well; but the two could exist in the same being. Some part of the gunroom’s friendliness would certainly have been caused by the presence of his guest, part of his happiness to the fact that he was speaking French most of the time (a language in which he had been wildly happy, amorous and even politically enthusiastic when he was a student in Paris), and part to the excellence of the dinner; but there remained an overplus that he had to attribute to his return to what was, after these many years, his own village, his own ship’s company, that complex entity so much more easily sensed than described: part of his natural habitat.
The long pause after the gunroom’s dinner, while Jack and Christy-Palliere carried on with their conversation in the cabin, was filled, as far as Stephen and Richard were concerned, with medical consultation. ‘I do not in any way mean to criticize the Royal Navy’s food,’ said Richard, when they were alone. ‘An excellent dinner, upon my word, and remarkably good wine. But what was that ponderous mass, glutinous and yet crumbling, enveloped in a sweet sauce, that came at the end?’
‘Why, that was plum duff, a great favourite in the service.’
‘Well, I am sure it is very good if you are used to it: but I fear that such very heavy cooking does not suit my digestion, delicate from childhood. Frankly, sir, I think that I may die.’
After the usual questions, palpations and other gestures, Stephen suggested a comfortable vomit: this was rejected with a shudder, but a moderate glass of brandy was exhibited with some small beneficial effect, and they spent the rest of their time playing a languid series of games of piquet for love, keeping themselves awake with coffee.
At last however they heard the bosun’s call and the watch on deck manning the side; and a midshipman came below with the Commodore’s compliments: Caroline’s barge was pulling across.
It was an affectionate farewell between the two commanders, but both were hoarse with talking; and when Jack Aubrey turned from the side after a last wave to ChristyPalliere he looked tired and worn. ‘Can you spare me a minute?’ he asked Stephen.
‘How I wish you had been with us,’ he went on as they sat by the stern windows, watching the French ship haul her wind and head for Mahon, followed by her shabby consort.
‘It would never have done.’
‘No. I suppose not ... but if only someone could have taken notes. He is a dear fellow and a capital seaman, but he does tend to ramble in his speech and start false hares: and in any case it is, as he often said, an extraordinarily complicated situation in the Adriatic - divided loyalties - some good men on either side, but more waiting to see which way the cat jumps, or as Christy put it “trying to reinsure themselves” in either event. And some of course are just out for the main chance, privateering on their own account or with Algerine renegadoes. Most of them think that Boney will win; and to be sure he had collected an extraordinary number of followers...One of the things that struck Christy most was the utter confusion in Paris. He went there last year, and having made the proper declarations and sworn the same oaths all over again at their Admiralty, and having complained in the right quarters about the continued delay in payment for the repairing and refitting of Caroline in Ragusa, he attended a levee. There were many people there, several of them men he had never seen who were wearing naval uniform, sometimes of high rank, who stared at him: it was a curious atmosphere of caution and jockeying for position - it was known that he had come up from the Adriatic and some of his service acquaintances avoided him. But when the king spoke to him quite kindly and told a naval aide-de-camp to ask Monsieur Lesueur to receive him that day, there was a singular change - he was no longer potentially dangerous to know. Yet the change had not reached the Ministry: there he found a different set of officials who did not know him, who did not know anything at all about him or his ship - what was her name? What type of vessel? - and who, looking at him with narrowed eyes, made him go through all the earlier formalities once more. Monsieur Lesueur was not available, they said; but he might be the next afternoon. So he was, and although he kept ChristyPalliere waiting for an hour and three quarters he did say that he was sorry for it - that Christy would understand that at such times he was not master of his movements - that the Ministry would very much appreciate a detailed report on the position in the Adriatic, where it was feared that irregularities might be taking place - and that Captain Christy-Palliere would be well advised to wait on Admiral Lafarge.
‘Christy-Palliere had served under Lafarge in his youth:they had neither of them liked one another then and they neither of them liked one another now. Lafarge’s face was still scarlet from his last interview and in the same angry tone he asked Christy-Palliere who the devil had given him leave to come up to Paris, and brushing aside his explanation told him that His Majesty did not pay him for whoring about in the capital and making interest for himself: his clear duty was to return to his ship directly, to attend to her repair and refitting, and to await further orders. The Admiral wished neither to listen to his excuses nor to see him again.
‘Christy also told me that this Admiral Lafarge had
