The Thirteen Gun Salute (33 page)

'A dirty business, Stephen.'

'Very dirty, brother; as dirty as can well be. But unless Duplessis can produce some fresh negotiator and some fresh inducement or obtain yet another postponement - and these are real possibilities, particularly the postponement - the negotiations may not drag on very much longer, and you may be able to keep your rendezvous with the Surprise.' He began to paddle back to the Diane in his awkward left-handed way, and after a while he said, out of a deep train of reflection, 'But, however, I am glad to hear what you tell me, about the French frigate's present state.'

'She will not move this many a day,' said Jack. 'It would not surprise me to see orchids growing in the mat on the mainmast, where the spar-shores meet it. Oh, Stephen, that reminds me: could it have been an osprey I saw, carrying a fish, slung fore and aft? An eagle-sized bird and quite a large fish?'

'I believe it might have been. I understand the dear birds to be almost universal. Some others are. I was amazed to find a barn owl at Kumai. A true barn owl. A robin would not have surprised me more.'

They were almost at the frigate's side. 'I hope you will sleep aboard tonight and tell me about Kumai,' said Jack. 'And then we might have some music. It is an age since we played so much as a note.'

'Tonight? I believe not: I shall almost certainly be engaged. But tomorrow, with the blessing...'

'Good night, dear colleague,' he said, opening the door, 'I hope I do not interrupt your work?'

'Not at all,' said van Buren. 'These are only notes for a paper on my usual subject for the Petersburg Academy.'

'I have brought you a cadaver. Wu Han's porters have it in a little cart in the lane. May I tell them to bring it in? And there is another, larger, if you would like a second specimen.'

'Oh, by all means - how very kind - how truly thoughtful, my dear Maturin - I will clear the long table.'

Wu Han's porters, though powerful, were adroit, exact in their movements; they put down their white-covered burden without disarranging so much as a fold. 'Pray wait by the cart a few moments,' said Stephen.

They padded out of the room, eyes cast down, their hands clasped before them, and van Buren drew back the cloth. 'This is a European,' he said.

'Yes,' said Stephen, trying the edge of a scalpel, 'an English renegado. I was acquainted with him in London, a Mr Wray.'

'An English spleen at last! An English spleen, the most famous of them all! And as fresh a cadaver as ever I have had the pleasure of opening. I am infinitely obliged to you, colleague. Death was caused by this bullet-wound, I see: a rifle-bullet. How curious.'

'Just so. That was also the case with his companion, the heavier one, whom you met once or twice; and the wound was equally recent. Perhaps they had been fighting. Will I send for him?'

Van Buren booked attentively into Stephen's face, and after a moment he said, 'Have you arranged this with the Vizier, Maturin?'

'I have, too. He said that the court was in no way concerned; that the protection had been publicly and specifically withdrawn and notified to Duplessis; and that we might do whatever we pleased. But he was sure that we would be discreet - that there would be no recognizable remains.'

'Then I am perfectly satisfied: oh what a blessed relief! Let us by all means send for the other, and in the meantime shall we start at the head?'

They worked steadily, with a cool, objective concentration: each had a clear understanding of the matter in hand - the relevant organs, those that might be useful for later comparison and those that might be discarded - and words were rarely necessary. Stephen had been present at many such dissections; he had carried out some hundreds himself, comparative anatomy being one of his chief concerns, but never had he seen such skill, such delicacy in removing the finer processes, such dexterity, boldness and economy of effort in removing superfluous material, such speed; and with this example he worked faster and more neatly than he had ever done before.

He had little sense of the passage of time; yet even so, when the long table was cleared at last and two fine fresh gleaming jars had been placed on van Buren's shelf of spleens preserved in spirits, when a certain number of organs - as impersonal as the wares in a butcher's shop - had been laid in brine for future use, and when the wholly unrecognizable remains had been shut away in zinc-lined wooden chests, he was surprised to find that it was still night.

They took off their long aprons, washed their instruments and their hands, and went to sit outside, in the bight of a gibbous moon.

'What a charming breeze,' said Stephen. 'It must have been really hot and close in there.'

'Hot and close, I make no doubt; but it was the most gratifying dissection I have ever performed,' said van Buren, letting himself down on the bench with a groan. 'My hands and back are quite stiff;, and tomorrow's patients may buy themselves dried salamanders in the bazaar - I shall not attend to them. But Heavens, how infinitely worth while! Do you know, I could scarcely overcome a feeling of extreme bitterness when I missed your Pondicherry clerk. On his mother's side he was a Hindu, and in common piety his co-religionists here - there are a score or so - felt themselves obliged to cremate him; and there, thought I, seeing the smoke ascend, was my very last chance of an at least partly European spleen. Lord, how little one knows!'

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the geckoes chuckling on the wall behind them, and then van Buren went on, 'Tell me again about your rhinoceroses. Had you not suspected their presence at all? No deep, webb-worn paths, no droppings, no tracks?'

'I had not. All these things were there, and they were apparent to me as I went back to the monastery having seen the animals; but from some imbecility of mind, some lasting state of astonishment at the possibility of accosting a wild boar and scratching its back and of walking hand in hand with an orang-utang, I had seen nothing. In the very first place I had not liked to mention rhinoceroses to the monks, because of the alleged aphrodisiac virtues of the horn: I did not wish to arouse the beast hint of suspicion. So they were not in my mind at all. In any case I have never thought of them as dwelling in mountains.'

'The Sultan attributes Hafsa's pregnancy solely to his use of the horn,' observed van Buren. 'But how very deeply concerned you must have been when they ran down the hill at you. I believe they weigh three tons.'

'I am sure they do. The earth trembled; I trembled with it. I had some fragmentary notion of leaping like a Cretan bull-vaulter, but before I could determine which foot, which hand would have been proper in Cnossus they were past me, thanks be to God. There was no malice in them, the creatures. Nor in any other living thing I saw at Kumai, except possibly for some tree-shrews which I heard quarrelling among themselves.'

They talked in a somewhat disconnected way about tree-shrews - the monks' imperfect Malay and how it increased Stephen's fluency and assurance - the anatomy of cheerfulness, what it is - plausibly said to have its seat in the spleen, perhaps in that curious set of minute granular bodies between the hibum and the gastric impression - only disordered spleens could have given the gland its indifferent reputation - spleens perhaps more frequently disordered in England than elsewhere, because of the climate - because of the diet - thoughts on the distribution of barn owls - and after a yawning pause van Buren said, 'We shall have to boil Cuvier's bones after all' in an artificially casual tone that would not have deceived a child.

Stephen knew that it was his duty to be amazed, and in spite of an almost insuperable weariness he cried, 'How? What are you saying?'

'I thought that would amaze you,' said van Buren. 'We shall have to boil them because there will be no time for the ants to finish the cleaning. Your treaty is being written out fair at this moment, in gold letters upon crimson paper, four full sheets of it. Mr Fox, warned shortly after sunrise, will attend for the signature in the early afternoon.'

'Is a man to have no sleep at all, no sleep whatsoever, in this vile misshapen hulk?' cried Dr Maturin, striking at the hand that jerked his cot and pulling the clothes over his head Ahmed had not dared persist, but Bonden was made of sterner stuff and the jerking continued, together with the words 'Captain's orders, if you please, sir. Now, your honour, rouse and bitt, Captain's orders, if you please, sir,' which had been mingling with his dream since the beginning of conscious time. At last he could bear it no longer; anger dispelled sleep and he sat up. Bonden handed him out of the cot with a most provoking mild solicitude, calling through the door 'Light it along, Killick.'

Ahmed appeared with a dressing-gown: between them they conveyed him to the dining-cabin, where Killick had laid out breakfast. A letter leant against the coffee-pot, and Bonden gave it to him: 'To be read directly minute, sir, if you please,' he said. 'Ahmed, pour away.'

Maturin was fairly wise in his generation when fully awake, but not so wise at present that he did not look earnestly at the back of the letter while he sipped his first reviving cup. 'It was brought by Mr Edwards, sir,' said Bonden. Killick, peering through the open door, said, 'Which he is down in the hold with the Captain and Chips this mortal minute, your honour,' and just overhead there broke out a shattering cry of 'Bargemen, d'ye hear there? Shave and clean shirt for six bells', followed by another set of orders and a sharp cutting pipe as the copper-bottomed launch, the honorary barge, was lowered down.

He broke the seal.

My dear Maturin

I give you joy. We have won! The Vizier has just sent me word that the treaty, in the exact terms we agreed upon, is ready, and I am to attend for signature at one o'clock, which the court astrologer declares a propitious hour. A propitious hour for us! I am only to take a small escort and suite, because of the circumstances, but I trust you will be of the number; and I trust you will also do me the honour of dining here afterwards.

In great haste

Yr most obdt humble servt

'Humble now I very much doubt,' said Stephen, and then, looking up, 'Good morning to you, gentlemen. You are both in a sad state of filth, I find. Jack, have you breakfasted? Mr Edwards, will I pour you a cup of coffee?'

'I am perfectly willing to breakfast again,' said Jack. 'We have been creeping about in the hold.'

'We have been rousing out the Sultan's subsidy,' said Edwards, joy radiating from him. 'You have heard the news of course, sir?'

'You were so kind as to bring it yourself,' said Stephen, nodding at the letter.

'So I did,' said Edwards, laughing happily. 'I am growing as forgetful as an old mole, or a bat.'

At five bells Jack stood up. 'Come, Mr Edwards,' he said. 'You and I and the Doctor must scrub ourselves from clew to earring and put on our birthday suits. Killick! Killick, there. You and Ahmed will help the Doctor to get ready to go to court: he will wear his scarlet robe.'

It was in his scarlet robe therefore that Dr Maturin stood on the quarterdeck, as ready as severe shaving, a newly-curbed, newly-powdered wig, and a good many other firm measures could make him. But in spite of them all - and the more savage kind of nursery-governess was nothing to Preserved Killick - his spirits rose with those of the ship. There was merriment all round him, laughter as the little heavy chests of treasure were lowered down one by one into the launch, lying under the barboard mainchains, much the same general happiness as if the Diane had captured a prize, and a rich one at that. The bargemen were already eating their dinner under the forecastle awning, holding it well away from their fine clothes.

Just' before eight bells in the forenoon watch the last chest was stowed: the select guard of the Marines and their officer were all in place, together with Richardson, Elliott, Maturin and young Seymour. Jack appeared in full uniform, wearing his gold-hiked presentation-sword, glanced fore and aft, and came down the side, but with no ceremony.

And it was with little ceremony that he met Fox's people, who had come to the landing-place with a couple of shabby bullock-carts for the subsidy. Not much more attended the appearance of the envoy himself, riding a handsome little Javanese horse, sent by the Vizier. He called out 'Good morning, gentlemen,' dismounted, gave the reins to the attendant grooms, and in a low, confidential tone he said, 'Forgive me, Aubrey: I am several minutes late - the line is already formed, I see - but should this go as I hope and trust it will, would you have any objection to sailing at once? The news should reach the Ministry at the earliest possible moment, and India, of course. I could ask the Vizier to transport our impedimenta in that same double proa.'

While one part of Jack's mind was recording the impression of intense, barely contained excitement, not unlike a certain form of drunkenness, another ran over the state of the Diane's water, wood and stores. 'It can be done,' he said. 'We may go a little short of fuel for the galley, but we can manage the evening tide.'

'I hoped you would say that, Aubrey,' said Fox, shaking his hand. 'I am so much obliged to you. I for one should be happy to eat my sea-pie raw to gain a day,' he added with a high-pitched laugh as he got on to his horse again and took the head of the procession.

It was a comparatively muted ceremony at the palace too: the Sultan was already on his throne when the mission entered the audience-hall, and although he greeted them with smiles and a proper complaisance his face was ravaged and during the long reading of the treaty it relapsed into an expression of very deep, settled unhappiness. After two speeches and the sealing and signing of both copies he retired, and the atmosphere became much less grave. The Vizier was in the highest spirits; he had formed a valuable, potentially an extremely valuable, alliance; he had filled the treasury; he had got rid of a most troublesome favourite; he had ensured the Sultana's good will; and it was not surprising that the presents given in the Sultan's name should reflect his chief minister's satisfaction. Fox had a coral-handled kris of great antiquity and a jade Buddha at least twice as old; Jack a star-ruby in a lacquer box, the fruit of some distant piracy; and Stephen a gift that for a moment put him out of countenance - a chest of the Honourable East India Company's best Bengal opium. As far as the baggage and servants were concerned, the old gentleman was delighted to be of service: Wan Da would attend to it immediately. And after fond farewells the envoy and his suite had the honours of drums and trumpets in each successive courtyard as they left, marching through a goodnatured cheerful crowd to Fox's house to dine.