Master & Commander (13 page)

   Prompted by the purser, the clerk brought forward the muster-book and the
Sophie's
lieutenant called out the names. 'Charles Stallard.'

   'Here sir,' cried Charles Stallard, able seaman, volunteer from the
St. Fsorenzo
, entered the
Sophie
6 May 1795, then aged twenty. No entry under Straggling, none under Venereals, none under Cloaths in Sick Quarters: had remitted ten pounds from abroad obviously a valuable man He stepped over to the starboard side.

   'Thomas Murphy'

   'Here, sir,' said Thomas Murphy, putting the knuckle of his index finger to his forehead as he moved over to join Stallard—a gesture used by all the men until James Dillon reached Assei and Assou, with never a Christian-name between them: able seamen, born in Bengal, and brought here by what strange winds? And they, in spite of years and years in the Royal Navy, put their hands to their foreheads and thence to their hearts, bending quickly as they did so.

   'John Codlin. William Witsover. Thomas Jones. Francis Lacanfra. Joseph Bussell. Abraham Vilheim. James Courser. Peter Peterssen. John Smith. Giuseppe Laleso. William Cozens. Lewis Dupont. Andrew Karouski. Richard Henry . . .' and so the list went on, with only the sick gunner and one Isaac Wilson not answering, until it ended with the newcomers and the boys—eighty-nine souls, counting officers, men, boys and marines.

   Then began the reading of the Articles of War, a ceremony that often accompanied divine service and that was so closely associated with it in most minds that the faces of the crew assumed a look of devout blankness at the words, 'for the better regulating of his Majesty's navies, ships of war, and forces by sea, whereon under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety and strength of his kingdom chiefly depend; be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the twenty-fifth day of December, one thousand seven hundred and forty-nine, the articles and orders hereinafter following, as well in time of peace as in time of war, shall be duly observed and put in execution, in manner hereinafter mentioned', an expression that they retained throughout, unmoved by 'all flag officers, and all persons in or belonging to his Majesty's ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanliness, or other scandalous actions, shall incur such punishment as a court-martial shall think fit to impose'. Or by the echoing repetition of 'shall suffer death'. 'Every flag-officer, captain and commander in the fleet who shall not . . . encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, shall suffer death . . . If any person in the fleet shall treacherously or cowardly yield or cry for quarter—being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death. Every person who through cowardice shall in time of action withdraw or keep back . . . shall suffer death . . . Every person who through cowardice, negligence or disaffection shall forbear to pursue any enemy, pirate, or rebel, beaten or flying . . . shall suffer death . . . If any officer, manner, soldier or other person in the fleet shall strike any of his superior officers, draw, or offer to draw, or lift up any weapon . . . shall suffer death . . . If any person in the fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery or sodomy with man or beast, he shall be punished with death.' Death rang through and through the Articles; and even where the words were utterly incomprehensible the death had a fine, comminatory, Leviticus ring, and the crew took a grave pleasure in it all; it was what they were used to—it was what they heard the first Sunday in every month and upon all extraordinary occasions such as this. They found it comfortable to their spirits, and when the watch below was dismissed the men looked far more settled.

   'Very well,' said Jack, looking round. 'Make signal twenty-three with two guns to leeward. Mr Marshall, we will set the main and fore stays'ls, and as soon as you see that pink coming up with the rest of the convoy, set the royals. Mr Watt, let the sailmaker and his party get to work on the square mainsail directly, and send the new hands aft one by one. Where's my clerk? Mr Dillon, let us knock these watch-bills into some kind of a shape. Dr Maturin, allow me to present my officers . . .' This was the first time Stephen and James had come face to face in the
Sophie
, but Stephen had seen that flaming red queue with its black ribbon and he was largely prepared. Even so, the shock of recognition was so great that his face automatically took on a look of veiled aggression and of the coldest reserve. For James Dillon the shock was far greater; in the hurry and business of the preceding twenty-four hours he had not chanced to hear the new surgeon's name; but apart from a slight change of colour he betrayed no particular emotion. 'I wonder,' said Jack to Stephen when the introductions were over, 'whether it would amuse you to look over the sloop while Mr Dillon and I attend to this business, or whether you would prefer to be in the cabin?'

   'Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to look over the ship, I am sure,' said Stephen. 'A very elegant complexity of . . .' his voice trailed away.

   'Mr Mowett, be so good as to show Dr Maturin everything he would like to see. Carry him into the maintop—it affords quite a visto. You do not mind a little height, my dear sir?'

   'Oh no,' said Stephen, looking vaguely about him. 'I do not mind it.'

   James Mowett was a tubular young man, getting on for twenty; he was dressed in old sailcoth trousers and a striped Guernsey shirt, a knitted garment that gave him very much the look of a caterpillar; and he had a marlinspike dangling round his neck, for he had meant to take a hand in the making of the new square mainsail. He looked attentively at Stephen to make out what kind of a man he was, and with that mixture of easy grace and friendly deference which comes naturally to so many sailors he made his bow and said, 'Well, sir, where do you choose to start? Shall we go into the top directly? You can see the whole run of the deck from there.'

  
The whole run of the deck
amounted to some ten yards aft and sixteen forward, and it was perfectly visible from where they stood; but Stephen said, 'Let us go up then, by all means. Lead the way, and I will imitate your motions as best I can.'

   He watched thoughtfully while Mowett sprang into the ratlines and then, his mind far away, slowly hoisted himself up after him. James Dillon and he had belonged to the United Irishmen, a society that at different tunes in the last nine years bad been an open, public association calling for the emancipation of Presbyterians, dissenters and Catholics and for a representative government of Ireland; a proscribed secret society; an armed body in open rebellion; and a defeated, hunted remnant. The rising had been put down amidst the usual horrors, and in spite of the general pardon the lives of the more important members were in danger. Many had been betrayed—Lord Edward Fitzgerald himself at the very outset—and many had withdrawn, distrusting even their own families, for the events had divided the society and the nation most terribly. Stephen Maturin was not afraid of any vulgar betrayal, nor was he afraid for his skin, because he did not value it: but he had so suffered from the incalculable tensions, rancour and hatreds that arise from the failure of a rebellion that he could not bear any further disappointment, any further hostile, recriminatory confrontation, any fresh example of a friend grown cold, or worse. There had always been very great disagreements within the association; and now, in the ruins of it, it was impossible, once daily contact had been lost, to tell where any man stood.

   He was not afraid for his skin, not afraid for himself: but presently his climbing body, now half-way up the shrouds, let him know that for its own part it was in a state of rapidly increasing terror Forty feet is no very great height, but it seems far more lofty, aerial and precarious when there is nothing but an insubstantial yielding ladder of moving ropes underfoot, and when Stephen was three parts of the way up cries of 'Belay' on deck showed that the staysails were set and their sheets hauled aft. They filled, and the
Sophie
heeled over another strake or two, this coincided with her leeward roll, and the rail passed slowly under Stephen's downward gaze, to be followed by the sea—a wide expanse of glittering water, very far below, and directly underneath His grip on the ratlines tightened with cataleptic strength and his upward progress ceased he remained there spreadeagled, while the varying forces of gravity, centrifugal motion, irrational panic and reasonable dread acted upon his motionless, tight-cramped person, now pressing him forward so that the checkered pattern of the shrouds and their crossing ratlines were imprinted on his front, and now plucking him backwards so that he bellied out like a shirt hung up to dry.

   A form slid down the backstay to the left of him: hands closed gently round his ankles, and Mowett's cheerful young voice said, 'Now, sir, on the roll. Clap on to the shrouds—the uprights—and look upwards. Here we go.' His right foot was firmly moved up to the next ratline, his left followed it; and after one more hideous swinging backward lunge in which he closed his cyes and stopped breathing, the lubber's hole received its second visitor of the day. Mowett had darted round by the futtock-shrouds and was there in the top to haul him through.

   'This is the maintop, sir,' said Mowett, affecting not to notice Stephen's haggard look. 'The other one over there is the foretop, of course.'

   'I am very sensible of your kindness in helping me up,' said Stephen. 'Thank you.'

   'Oh, sir,' cried Mowett, 'I beg . . . And that's the mainstays'l they just set, below us. And that's the forestays'l for'ard: you'll never see one, but on a man-of-war.'

   'Those triangles? Why are they called staysails?' asked Stephen, speaking somewhat at random.

   'Why, sir, because they are rigged on the stays, slide along them like curtains by those rings: we call 'em banks, at sea. We used to have grommets, but we rigged banks when we were laying off Cadiz last year, and they answer much better. The stays are those thick ropes that run sloping down, straight for'ard.'

   'And their function is to extend these sails: I see.'

   'Well, sir, they do extend them, to be sure. But what they are really for is to hold up the masts—to stay them for'ard. To prevent them falling backwards when she pitches.'

   'The masts need support, then?' asked Stephen, stepping cautiously across the platform and patting the squared top of the lower mast and the rounded foot of the topmast, two stout parallel columns—close on three feet of wood between them, counting the gap. 'I should scarcely have thought it.'

   'Lord, sir, they'd roll themselves overboard, else. The shrouds support them sideways, and the backstays—these here, sir—backwards.'

   'I see. I see. Tell me,' said Stephen, to keep the young man talking at any cost, 'tell me, what is the purpose of this platform, and why is the mast doubled at this point? And what is this hammer for?'

   'The top, sir? Why, apart from the rigging and getting things up, it comes in handy for the small-arms men in a close action: they can fire down on the enemy's deck and toss stink-pots and grenadoes. And then these futtock-plates at the rim here hold the dead-eyes for the topmast shrouds—the top gives a wide base so that the shrouds have a purchase the top is a little over ten foot wide It is the same thing up above There are the cross-trees, and they spread the topgallant shrouds You see them, sir? Up there, where the look-out is perched, beyond the topsail yard'

   'You could not explain this maze of ropes and wood and canvas without using sea-terms, I suppose. No, it would not be possible'

   'Using no sea-terms? I should be puzzled to do that, sir, but I will try, if you wish it'

   'No, for it is by those names alone that they are known, in nearly every case, I imagine' The
Sophie's
tops were furnished with iron stanchions for the hammock-netting that protected their occupants in battle Stephen sat between two of them, with an arm round each and his legs dangling, he found comfort in this feeling of being firmly anchored to metal, with solid wood under his buttocks The sun was well up in the sky by now and it threw a brilliant pattern of light and sharp shadow over the white deck below—geometrical lines and curves broken only by the formless mass of the square mainsail that the sailmaker and his men had spread over the fo'c'sle. 'Suppose we were to take that mast,' he said, nodding forward, for Mowett seemed to be afraid of talking too much—afraid of boring and instructing beyond his station, 'and suppose you were to name the principal objects from the bottom to the top.'

   'It is the foremast, sir. The bottom we call the lower mast, or just the foremast; it is forty-nine feet long, and it is stepped on the kelson. It is supported by shrouds on either side—three pair of a side—and it is stayed for'ard by the forestay running down to the bowsprit: and the other rope running parallel with the forestay is the preventer-stay, in case it breaks. Then, about a third of the way up the foremast, you see the collar of the mainstay: the mainstay goes from just under here and supports the mainmast below us.'

   'So that is a mainstay,' said Stephen, looking at it vaguely. 'I have often heard them mentioned. A stout-looking rope, indeed.'

   'Ten-inch, sir,' said Mowett proudly. 'And the preventer-stay is seven. Then comes the forecourse yard, but perhaps I had best finish the masts before I go on to the yards. You see the foretop, the same kind of thing as we are on now? It lies on the trestletrees and crosstrees about five parts of the way up the foremast: and so the remaining length of lower mast runs double with the topmast, just as these two do here. The topmast, do you see, is that second length going upwards, the thinner piece that rises above the top. We sway it up from below and fix it to the lower mast, rather like a marine clapping a bayonet on to his musket: it comes up through the trestletrees, and when it is high enough, so that the hole in the bottom of it is clear, we ram a fid through, banging it home with the top-maul, which is this hammer you were asking about, and we sing out "Launch ho!" and . . .' the explanation ran eagerly on.