Blue at the Mizzen (11 page)

'Why not here?'

'Because, sir,' said Jack, looking him full in the face, 'this is a place frequented by public men - I dare say we have at least half the Opposition, or more, and several ministers -and I do not wish it to be supposed that I am in any way currying favour with the Court. With the utmost respect, Your Highness, I am not, most emphatically not doing so. If Horatio and I like one another, and if I think him fit to make the voyage and fit to be a sea-officer eventually, I shall take him. Otherwise I shall not.'

'Well, sir, that is frankness indeed,' said Clarence, looking from one to the other, somewhat taken aback. He wiped his nose with the back of his forefinger - a gesture familiar to Stephen - then after a short silence, he said, 'And I thank you for it. When should you like to see the boy?'

'At half-past two o'clock on Monday, sir, if you please.'

** *

At twenty-nine minutes past two on Monday, Lucy tapped at their sitting-room door and said, 'If you please, sir, there is a man in black downstairs with a young gentleman. Shall I show them up? And Doctor, the apothecary asks if you could do with another bottled asp.'

Jack said, 'Pray show them up.' Stephen said, 'By all means: let him send it round.'

The visitors walked in. Jack said, 'Mr. Hanson, pray take a seat,' and to the other, a discreet upper servant, 'I shall probably be about an hour with Mr. Hanson: do you choose to wait in the snug, or shall I send him home in a chaise or a hackney?'

'I had rather wait, sir, if you please.'

The boy, a slim, fair, rather good-looking youth of about fifteen, was pitifully nervous - he also seemed to have at least the beginning of a cold - and he watched the disappearance of his only ally with a barely-concealed anguish: but he gathered his courage and addressing Jack he said, 'Sir, my Uncle William sends you his good-day: he told me that you had very, very kindly agreed to receive me, to judge...' he faltered, but then began again, '. . . to judge whether I might be admitted to your midshipmen's berth.'

'So I did,' said Jack, as kindly as he could. 'And first I should like to ask you some questions to get an idea of how far you have advanced. Since you have not yet been to sea I shall not trouble you with sails and rigging, but I dare say you already know that the mathematics are of the first importance to a sea-officer?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You know the elements of arithmetic, I am sure; but have you learnt any algebra and geometry?'

'A little, sir. I can manage the quadratic equation fairly well, and I am tolerably forward in Euclid.'

'Could you define a hypotenuse offhand?'

'Oh yes, sir,' said Horatio, smiling for the first time.

Jack drew the familiar figure and said, 'Now tell me how it can be shown that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, will you?'

Horatio did so, his voice growing clearer and more confident; and Stephen's attention wandered. Remotely he heard the boy tell the nature of a secant, a cosecant, a tangent and cotangent, a sine and its fellow; and when next he took notice they were talking with real animation about such astronomy as Horatio and his grandfather's curate, Mr. Walker, had managed to accomplish with a home-made refracting instrument just powerful enough for the moons of Jupiter, the delightful moons of Jupiter, on a clear and moonless night. Stephen let his eyelids droop.

'Sir,' said Horatio gently in Stephen's ear, laying a hand upon his arm. 'I believe the Captain is speaking to you.'

Stephen was not much given to lying, but he was as reluctant as any other man to admit that he had been asleep: he now strongly affirmed 'that he had been meditating on some of the Pythagoreans' wilder statements.'

'Doctor,' said Jack, 'may I beg you to address Mr. Hanson in French and Latin? Perhaps Greek would be coming it rather high, for a sea-officer. Do you know any Greek, Mr. Hanson?'

'No, sir,' said Mr. Hanson, with a particularly charming and happy smile. 'Only the alphabet: but I was going to start next year with Mr. Walker. Greek, and even Hebrew.'

While Stephen and Hanson were prosing away in French and Latin according to the curious English pronunciation, Jack made a rough draft of his promised letter. He had almost finished it when he heard the sounds of a good-natured conclusion on the other side of the room. 'There,' he said, standing up, 'I have almost reached the end, and I shall finish when the Doctor has told me what he thinks: so if you would like to walk about for half an hour - the river and its shipping is just down the way - I shall put my draft into proper shape for your Uncle William - what is that infernal row?'

It was Sarah and Emily, back from school and over-excited by their new boots: they burst in, kissed Stephen, kissed Jack, and then gazed at the wholly unexpected Horatio, who gazed back with at least equal surprise.

'My dears,' said Stephen, 'this is Mr. Hanson, who may be going to sea: Mr. Hanson, these are my god-daughters, Sarah and Emily. And since you have half an hour to spare, I am sure they would show you the delights of the river, which they know intimately well.'

'How they have shot up,' said Jack, as the boots went clattering down. 'Dear little souls: I remember them as poor puling little objects, fit only for bait. Now I must hurry with my fair copy - but first tell me what you think of the boy.'

'He seems to me an agreeable, ingenuous, well-bred youth: his French is well above the English average, and his Latin is acceptable.'

'I am very glad of that. I tell his uncle that he has a surprising grasp of mathematics, particularly those applied to navigation and astronomy. He already has the basis of a sea-officer. He takes a real pleasure - more than pleasure -in those studies, and I say that subject to the ordinary allowance of a hundred a year and a proper outfit, I should be happy to take him, all the more since you have said that his French is quite good and his Latin passable. But before binding myself fully I feel that a few words with His Highness are called for: so since I am cruelly pressed for time, I beg for an early interview tomorrow morning. Do you think that covers the ground?"

'Admirably, my dear. While you write it fair I shall see what we are to have for dinner.'

It was a pair of fowls. But before they could be put down to the fine bright fire, Horatio and the little girls came back, obviously great friends. Horatio hurried upstairs. 'I do hope, sir, that I am neither early nor late? My Uncle has always said that the Navy absolutely insisted upon punctuality.'

'No,' said Jack, 'you are to the minute. Now here is a letter for your Uncle: in it I say that as far as I am concerned I should be happy to have you aboard.' The boy flushed, and his chin trembled. 'But of course, the final decision rests with him. If he agrees with my conditions, I have suggested an appointment for the Portsmouth coach on Saturday. Here is the letter: it also says that I should like to wait on him early tomorrow morning. Perhaps he would send a servant to appoint the time? Now cut along - you must not keep him from his dinner.'

Early the next morning at Fladong's hotel Clarence was waiting at the top of the stairs, and he saw with some concern that Captain Aubrey's face, usually brown from the wind and the sun, was now a disagreeable yellow, his eyes dark-rimmed, and his expression, though properly deferential, by no means as amiable as it had been yesterday: this was the result of a late leave-taking feast with old shipmates and measureless wine, but the cause did not occur to the Duke, for whom Jack Aubrey was not only one of the most successful fighting captains but also the very type of virtue. 'Pray come in and take a seat,' he said; and then, after a pause, 'I cannot tell you how your letter pleased me: but may I ask whether you choose to take him?'

'Well, sir, he seems to me a thoroughly good boy, and I should be happy to take him: but on condition that he is treated as an ordinary reefer. I should deplore the presence of any senior officer when he comes aboard.' (Clarence had long since reached flag-rank.) 'It might have an appearance of favouritism, which is very much disliked in a company of young men who usually have little influence and less money, and who are likely to lead the favoured youth -particularly a first-voyager - a miserable time of it. And although there are some eminent exceptions' - with a bow - 'I have very rarely known a privileged midshipman of that kind make a good officer. And in passing I may say that I shall warn him very strongly against the least hint of influential friends or connexions.'

'I entirely agree with you, sir,' said Clarence. 'I myself felt the weight of influence very strongly, and many, many a time did I tell myself that I should never have been made post without I was King George's son.'

'Oh, sir, I am sure you should,' said Jack, in answer to a singularly touching look. 'At one time we were alongside Pegasus in the West Indies, and I never beheld a frigate in better order.'

'Why, to be sure,' said Clarence, positively bridling, 'that is very kind of you to say so, upon my word it is. May I call for a pot of coffee?'

'Not for me, sir, I thank you.'

Clarence raised his head, listening. 'I think that is the boy on the landing,' he said. 'If that is your only condition, I accept it fully, with all my heart.' He shook Jack's hand and then opened the door. 'Come in, Horatio,' he called. 'We are quite agreed, and in his great goodness Captain Aubrey will take you aboard Surprise.'

'Oh thank you, sir: thank you very much indeed,' cried the boy, intensely moved. 'I am sure my dear Uncle must have been very happy to hear it.'

He certainly looked very happy, though strangely moved, when he brought Horatio to the White Horse, with a bowed porter carrying the new sea-chest. 'I am so very glad to see you, Aubrey,' he called. 'So very glad to have read your letter over again - admirably well put - and of course I agree to all you have said: admirably well put. Your servant, Doctor. And I assure you, I am most uncommonly obliged... but forgive me, I beg, if I run away. There is Mornington waiting for me on the other side, and I absolutely cannot bear partings.' With this, having wrung Jack's hand yet again, he did in fact literally run, moving heavily and thrusting his way through the crowd.

Horatio looked a little nonplussed: but at this moment Jack called out, 'Mr. Daniel! There you are: good morning to you. I have four insides, so heave your chest into the boot and get aboard. But first let me introduce Mr. Hanson, who is joining your berth.' The young men shook hands. 'He is only a first-voyager, but he already has a pretty sense of number, and I hope you will agree very well.'

People were getting in, crawling like spiders on to the roof; friends pressed closer, some calling out farewells; and a much louder voice cried 'Get out of my fucking way, you bloody cuckolds,' and Clarence heaved through the throng, mounted the steps, said 'God bless you, Horatio,' bent over him, pressed something into his hand and backed out, stammering something to Jack about '. . . present... forgotten... thank..." And painful it was to see that large pale glabrous face fairly aswim with tears.

'Let go,' called the coachman, and in a moment the whole massive affair was under way, contributing to the general roar of Saturday's traffic - an exceptionally noisy and crowded Saturday, so that it was not until the coach was running over the newly-smoothed and comparatively silent road across Putney Heath that there was any real conversation - Horatio, much moved, had said nothing at all but 'Yes, sir,' or 'No, sir.' But now, during this quiet running, and during a lull in what little talk there was, a clear small bell struck eleven, and Horatio gazed with amazement at the packet Uncle William had thrust into his hand. In the listening silence Stephen's own repeater uttered the faintest echo of the chime from his fob. 'I believe, sir,' he said, taking out the watch, 'that you have much the same machine as I. May we compare them?'

They were both indeed Breguet repeating watches, wonderfully accurate, wonderfully resistant - Stephen's had been with him (sometimes captured, sometimes restored) years without number and its minute voice had accompanied him through many a sleepless night. 'When we sit down to our dinner,' he said, 'which, with the blessing, will be at Guildford, I will show you how mine can be adjusted for fast and slow, loud or soft for chime, repetition and alarm. They are truly wonderful little machines."

'Yes, indeed, sir,' said Horatio, and he gazed at its elegant dial, its creeping hands, almost all the way to Guildford, only pausing now and then to ask Daniel, whose kindness he sensed at once, questions about naval life. 'So I am not really a midshipman at all?' he asked, when the others were busy talking.

'No. Seeing you are joining a frigate, where there is not much room, you will be a member of the midshipmen's berth, and seeing that you are quite old, you will not be treated as a youngster, although this is your first voyage: but on Surprise's books you will be a first-class volunteer -a volunteer of the first class - and you will not be a full-blown mid until the Captain promotes you. Still, you wear a mid's uniform, and you walk the quarterdeck: you are only the first term in a progression, to be sure, but you do belong to it; and that is the great thing.'

Progressions, arithmetic, geometric, or just plain physical tend to be very long; and as far as the emotionally worn-out Horatio Hanson was concerned, this first term in his particular sequence would have seemed almost eternal, but for the successive reassuring chimes in his bosom. Jack had asked the coachman to stop at the Hind, where they had a little more to eat and then piled into two local post-chaises with their sea-chests and night-bags for the last leg to Woolcombe.

It had indeed been a long and weary journey for Horatio, with much nervous strain before, during and after it, when he was presented to the Captain's family and a large assortment of his future shipmates, some of them, like the master, almost unbelievably old, others belonging to the berth. The supper and the trial of long corridors unknown, a vast strange bedroom and uncertainty whether he might use the chamber-pot.

But what wonders a long night can work: and a huge breakfast in the company of primarily naval people, none of them at all forbidding, most of them benign. The ease and calm authority of the Captain's daughters and the casual way in which young George wandered to and from the sideboard, helping himself to an improbable number of things, impressed him deeply, but not so much as Mr. Whewell's play-by-play history of how the house team had indeed crushed the village, in spite of their parson, by eighteen runs.