The Unknown Shore (9 page)

‘Here is your mate, doctor,’ said Mr Jones.

‘Thank you, Mr Jones,’ said the surgeon, looking a trifle less vexed. ‘And Mr Jones, if you should see that damned loblolly-boy, give him a great kick, will you, and send him to me? I sent him,’ he explained to Tobias, ‘I sent him half an hour ago to the bo’sun for a man to refashion your screen – a pretty simple message, I believe.’

Mr Eliot afloat was not altogether the same as Mr Eliot ashore: much more authoritative, less loquacious and companionable; and at this moment he was out of humour. His natural benignity had prompted him to come down to see to Tobias’ quarters, which (as he said) few surgeons would have done, but by now a large number of little irritations had mounted up, so that he felt distinctly aggrieved by Tobias. ‘Andrew!’ he shouted into the echoing cavern of the gun-deck, ‘Andrew! Blast that brute-beast to the nethermost bottom of Hell. Ah, there you are. Where have you been? Ah, lumpkin!’ cried the surgeon, sweeping his hand in the general direction of the boy’s head.

‘The bo’sun says it is the carpenter’s business,’ said the boy, ducking.

‘What a disobliging dog that bo’sun is,’ said the surgeon. ‘A shabby fellow – a Gosport truepenny. It is always the same, Mr Barrow: he knows the carpenter is ashore. I wished to have this screen arranged so, do you see?’ he said, holding up a piece of canvas. Tobias’ eyes were by now thoroughly accustomed to the murk, and he saw that he was in an enclosure about nine feet by twelve, made of canvas up to five feet high on two sides, while an immense chest with a prodigious number of small drawers closed the third side. Mr Eliot was holding a loose piece of canvas across the fourth. ‘This would give you a surprising degree of privacy, could we but fix it,’ he said. ‘It is a magnificent cockpit, upon my word – almost a standing cabin. And look at the head-room! Even I need hardly stoop, and you can stand quite upright, at least in the middle. You should have seen the hole I started my career in. Half the size, and there were three of us, one a very nauseating companion. But we might as well make it even better, and screen you from the view of our future patients: a little privacy is a wonderful thing at sea.’

‘Sir,’ said Tobias, ‘I am infinitely obliged to you, for your attention to my comfort.’

‘And well you may be,’ said Mr Eliot, ‘for there’s not another surgeon in the service who would do half as much.’ Then, feeling that this was a little more ungracious than he had meant, he showed Tobias the medicine-chest, and offered him a draught of medicinal brandy, or a spoonful of syrup of squills, and anything that he might fancy in the way of melissa balm, Venice treacle or aniseed julep. In the course of a lifetime spent among drugs he had acquired a taste for many of them, a taste shared, to some extent, by Tobias and the loblolly-boy, and for a while they browsed among the tinctures, linctuses and throches, mixing themselves small personal prescriptions – mandragora, opium, black hellebore. ‘We operate here,’ said Mr Eliot, ‘in time of action,’ and he showed Tobias the instruments.

‘This is a very fine trepan,’ said Tobias, holding up a wicked machine for boring holes in one’s skull.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Eliot. ‘The last time I used that was on the second lieutenant of the
Sutherland,
a very obstinate case of melancholy. I conceived that it would relieve him.’

‘Did it do so, sir?’

‘He was a most ungrateful patient.’

Tobias thought it as well to change the subject, and observed, ‘Here are bandages; here are needles and sutures. If we were to make a hole in this piece of wood with the trepanning-iron and pass a bandage through it, we could fasten the screen, by sewing the flaps as though it were a Gemelli’s prosection.’

‘Very good,’ said Mr Eliot, whose temper had been largely restored by a saline draught and a blue pill; and seizing the trepan he bored the standard with a skill and celerity that reflected much upon the gratitude of the second lieutenant of the
Sutherland.
Speed is of vital importance to those who must operate without anaesthetics, and Mr Eliot, seconded by Tobias, whipped up the canvas erection as if they were racing against a stop-watch.

‘It will do,’ said the surgeon, snipping the last suture and standing back, as if from a patient. ‘About two minutes, I believe. Now I will leave you, Mr Barrow, and I shall expect to see you at eight o’clock in the morning, abaft the foremast: the rest of the day is your own. If there is anything you want, pass the word for one of the loblolly-boys, or come to my cabin, which is on the starboard side of the half-deck, next to the master’s. I dare say his mates will invite you to mess with them.’ With these words he walked off, followed by his attendant, leaving Tobias in the cockpit; leaving him, too, in a state of confusion. He sat in the gloom, repeating ‘abaft the foremast’ in an undertone, and trying to reconcile his ideas of the healthiness of a sea-going life – unlimited fresh open air, and light – with this appallingly fetid den in the darkness. He tried to remember the way by which he had been led into the cockpit; he wondered whether it would be improper to leave it, whether he would ever be fed, and if so, where. A little later there was a strange drumming noise, followed by an unrestrained bawling and hallooing: a body of men rushed along the deck, lit now by occasional gleams and the opening of ports, and the canvas walls of Tobias’ berth bulged inwards as human forms blundered past it, to vanish as suddenly as they had come, with a spirited howl.

‘If I had had more presence of mind,’ said Tobias aloud, feeling his way slowly out of the cockpit, ‘I would have asked them the way. It might not have looked well, however: and I shall certainly find it
myself, sooner or later.’ He was particularly anxious not to expose Jack as the possessor of a discreditably ignorant friend; he had, without being able to define the immediate causes, been aware of Jack’s uneasiness on several occasions, and although for himself he was totally indifferent to public opinion, he now, on reaching the main well-pump ladder, crept silently down it into the hold.

When he had crawled over six of the lower futtocks, he found himself against the bulkhead of the bread-room, and here he was obliged to stop, for there was no way of getting farther aft. He was entirely surrounded by vast shrouded forms, very faintly to be surmised by the strangled remnant of light that filtered down through four successive gratings: rats moved about, and the unseen bilges slopped drearily underfoot. He no longer knew which way round he was.

Immediately above him, separated by some thirty feet of perpendicular distance, Jack and the purser took leave of one another.

‘You will commend my humble duty to his lordship,’ said the purser, ‘and if there is any way in which I can oblige you, I shall be most happy.’

‘You are very good,’ said Jack; and as soon as the purser had gone he wiped his hand, for Mr Hervey had been very zealous in shaking it. ‘I wonder what he wants,’ he thought, looking after the purser: Jack was not unduly cynical, but he was aware of the facts of life. ‘Probably one of the livings,’ he surmised, quite accurately, as it happened. His grandfather, Lord Berkeley (Jack was disgustingly well-connected, and there were lords in every direction, in his family), had two livings in his gift, whose present incumbents were very old; and Jack had more than once received marked civilities and attentions from clergymen and their relatives. He always accepted anything that was going in this line with a natural cheerful corruptness, and now he looked about the cabin with intense satisfaction: it was an odd, long, thin space squeezed between the wardroom bulkhead and the first lieutenant’s cabin, and if the
Wager had
carried a normal complement of lieutenants it would certainly have belonged to one of them, if not to two, for it was much too valuable a space to be occupied by any midshipman, however gaudy his connexions. It had a bunk of rather curious lines, excellently adapted for a triangular dwarf, two lockers and just enough room to sling a hammock; it had no light or air, of course, except that which could make its way
through the door, but it represented a degree of comfort that Jack could not have looked for legitimately for years to come.

‘I must find Toby,’ said he, and he hurried forward to the midshipmen’s berth. Here there was an apprehensive thin youth, but no Toby. ‘Hallo,’ he said to the thin boy. ‘My name is Byron. Have you seen the surgeon’s mate? A little cove in black?’

‘No, sir,’ said the thin boy, standing to attention.

‘Never mind me,’ said Jack, ‘I’m only a midshipman. If he should come in, beg him to wait for me, will you? I am going down to the cockpit.’

He drew a blank in the cockpit, although he waited there for some time; but reflecting that Tobias would probably be with the surgeon in his cabin revolving the ghastly topics of their trade, he went back to the berth: he had heard the noise of several parties returning to the ship while he was below, and he was not surprised to find two more midshipmen there. One was a big, fleshy fellow with a red face and a loud laugh, and the other was a dark, pock-marked, wry-mouthed creature with a Scotch accent.

The fat, jolly midshipman was amusing himself by interrogating the thin boy, an obviously new arrival, who was standing stiffly before him, terrified. ‘Here, you,’ called out the inquisitor, on seeing Jack. ‘Come here and give an account of yourself. Double up.’

‘Damn your blood,’ said Jack mildly, sitting on a locker. ‘Do you think my name is Green?’

‘I suppose you are Byron?’ asked the other, with a grin. ‘Your chest came aboard just now: Ransome of the
Centurion
brought it – he only hooked on, and said he would see you again. My name is Cozens, and this is Campbell. I was only trying it on: for a laugh, you know. You ain’t offended?’

‘Never in life,’ said Jack, shaking hands.

‘Ye’re the pairson wha’s tookit yon pigwidgeon cabin,’ said Campbell. From this point onwards it must be understood that Campbell spoke broad Scotch at all times, although his remarks will be put down in English; for the representation of a dialect is tedious, inaccurate and often incomprehensible. On this occasion the only part of the remark that Jack clearly understood was the unfriendliness of the tone; but he was saved from making any reply by the hubbub of all hands being piped for dinner.

‘Who’s the senior among us?’ asked Jack, as they sat over the frugal delights provided for the midshipmen.

‘I am,’ said Cozens.

‘Well then, do you mind if I bring a friend into our mess? He is the surgeon’s mate, a capital fellow.’

‘Bring a dozen, mate. The more the merrier, I always say,’ said Cozens, laughing heartily. ‘I love a crowd.’

‘It is not regular,’ said Campbell.

‘What do you say?’ said Jack to the new midshipman, whose name was Morris.

‘Certainly,’ said Morris.

‘Well, that is kind and handsome in the mess,’ said Jack. ‘I shall introduce him this evening – he is a very learned cove, and excellent company. I say,’ he said, stretching, ‘what an amazingly spacious berth this is. In the
Sovereign
you could scarcely eat for the elbows each side of you.’

‘You expect to have elbow-room in an Indiaman – she’s only a cursed Indiaman really, you know,’ said Cozens. ‘But you wait till the soldiers come aboard – we shall have a charming great crowd –’ He was interrupted by a quartermaster, who, standing in the doorway and putting his knuckle to his right-hand eyebrow, cried in a harsh, complaining tone, ‘Now, Mr Byron, sir, what about this here chest? It can’t lay about on deck all day,’ – winking and nodding in order to make it clear that he was not in earnest.

‘Why, it’s Rose,’ cried Jack, recognising an old shipmate. ‘How are you, Rose? I’m very glad to see you. As for my chest, stow it in  …’ and then, conceiving that it might be tactless just now to shout about his cabin, he got up, and said, ‘Come along, I will show you. How do you come to be aboard, and are there any more old Pembrokes?’ he asked, leading the way – the
Pembroke
had been his ship before the
Royal Sovereign.
The quartermaster had been sent into the
Wager,
Jack learnt, because he had experience of stowing a siege-train, and one of the
Wager’s
chief purposes in life was to carry battering-pieces to argue with the Spaniards on the Pacific – a much more convincing argument, in the eyes of all her crew, than the bales of trade-goods, broad-cloth, beads and basins that filled the after-hold and even part of the bread-room.

‘I will show them to you, if you like,’ said the quartermaster,
having filled the cabin with Jack’s sea-chest, ‘for we are going below directly, to make all fast, and it will be the last any man-jack will see of ‘em until’ – here he shaded his mouth with the back of his hand – ‘we’re in the Great South Sea.’

‘Not the same as the dear old
Pembroke,’
observed Jack, as they passed along the roomy bays on the gun-deck, where the men slung their hammocks.

‘Not the same by no means,’ said Rose emphatically; and after he had shown Jack the hold and some of the finer points of stowing a very heavy and dangerously movable cargo, he returned to this subject. The dear old
Pembroke
might have been a pig in a cross-sea, he said, and she might have had the narrowest cruel hatches known in creation; there was certainly no room in her for a man to spit, as he might say, in a manner of speaking; she was an unhealthy ship, with mould three fingers deep on the beams, and the dear old
Pembroke
was obliged to be pumped morning, noon and night; but he would rather have the old
Pembroke
than a dozen
Wagers,
however dry and well found. Because why? Because the
Pembroke’s
crew, though an ill-faced parcel of thieves to be sure, were men-of-war’s men. You knew what to expect. With the people of this ship you did
not
know what to expect: he had never seen anything like it. In thirty-one years odd months of service he had never seen anything like it. ‘It is not that they are pressed men,’ he said – ‘we are all pressed men, more or less. But I tell ‘ee, Mr Byron, if anything untoward or nasty, as I might say in a manner of speaking – if anything should happen, with such a pack aboard, why, mark my words –’ Here he raised the lantern to give solemnity to his foreboding, uttered a terrible scream, clawed the air past Jack’s left ear, struck his head against an upper-futtock rider and fell trembling in the bilge.