The Ionian Mission. Patrick O’Brian

nursing his box: he sniffed, and went below without a word. The Marine sentry at the cabin door changed his smile to a look of remote wooden respect as he passed.

      On the quarterdeck Mr Pullings said to a midshipman, ‘Mr Appleby, jump down to the purser and ask him for half a pint of sweet oil.’

      ‘Sweet oil, sir?’ cried the midshipman. ‘Yes, sir, directly,’ he said, seeing a hint of brimstone in the first lieutenant’s eye.

      ‘Pin her, Joe,’ said Bonden. The bowman hooked on at the mainchains, the big lugsail came down with a run, and speaking in a curt, official voice Bonden said, ‘Now, sir, if you please. We can’t hang about all day under the barky’s lee. I’ll look after your old parcel.’

      The Worcester was a wall-sided ship and the way into her was a series of very shallow smooth wet slippery steps that rose vertically from the waterline, with no comfortable tumblehome, no inward slope, to help the pilgrim on his way; still, they had manropes on either side and this made it just possible for very agile, seamanlike mariners to go aboard: but Dr Maturin was neither agile nor yet seamanlike.

      ‘Come on, sir,’ said the coxswain impatiently as Stephen crouched there, hesitating with one foot on the gunwale. The gap between the ship and the gig began widening again and before it should reach proportions of a chasm Stephen made a galvanic spring, landing on the lowest step and grasping the manropes with all his might. Here he stood, gasping and contemplating the sheer height above: he knew he had behaved very ill, and that he was in disgrace. Bonden, though an old friend, had greeted him without a smile, saying, ‘You have cut it precious fine, sir. Do you know you have very nearly made us miss the tide? And may yet.’ And in the passage from the shore he had heard a good deal more about ‘missing the tide, and a roaring great old spring-tide too,’ and about the Captain’s horrid rage ‘at being made to look a ninny in the face of the whole fleet – like a flaming lion all through the ebb; which if he misses of it at last, there will be all Hell to pay, and with boiling pitch at that.’ Harsh words from Bonden, and no kindly stern-ladder or even bosun’s chair to bring him aboard … here the Worcester gave a lee-lurch, heaving her ugly larboard flank so high that the copper showed, while the starboard, with Stephen on it, sank to a corresponding depth. The cold sea surged deliberately up, soaking his legs and the greater part of his trunk. He gasped again, and clung tighter.

      As she rolled back again vigorous, impatient hands seized his ankles, and he found himself propelled up the side. ‘I must remember to pay the proper compliment to the quarterdeck,’ he reflected, when he was very nearly there. ‘This may attenuate my fault.’ But in his agitation he forgot that he had earlier pinned his hat to his wig, to preserve it from the wind, and when on reaching the holy space he pulled it off – when both rose together – his gesture had more the appearance of ill-timed jocularity than of respect, so much so that some of the young gentlemen, two ship’s boys, and a Marine, who did not know him, dissolved in honest mirth, while those who did know him did not seem mollified at all.

      ‘Upon my word, Doctor,’ said Mowett, the officer of the watch, ‘you have cut it pretty fine, I must say. You very nearly made us miss our tide. What was you thinking of ? And you are all wet – sopping wet. How did you get so wet?’

      Mr Pullings, standing by the weather rail, looking stiff and remote, said, ‘The rendezvous was for the height of flood two tides ago, sir,’ with no kind word of greeting.

      Stephen had known Mowett and Pullings since they were mere snotty reefers of no consequence whatsoever, and at any other time he would have snapped them as tight shut as a snuff-box; but now their vast moral superiority, the general strong mute disapprobation of the Worcester’s company, and his own wet misery left him without a word, and although in the depths of his mind he was half aware that this harshness was at least in part assumed, that it belonged to the naval idea of fun he had so often suffered from, he could not bring himself to respond.

      Pulling’s grim expression softened a little. He said, ‘You got a ducking, I see. You must not stand there in wet clothes: you will catch your death of cold. Has it reached your watch?’

      Very, very often in Dr Maturin’s career, it – that is to say the sea, that element so alien to him – had reached his watch when he came aboard, and indeed sometimes it had closed over his head; but every time the fact astonished and distressed him. ‘Oh,’ he cried, groping in his fob, ‘I believe it has.’ He took out the watch and shook it, shedding still more water on the deck.’

      ‘Give it here, sir,’ said Pullings. ‘Mr Appleby, take this watch and put it in the sweet oil.’

      The cabin door opened. ‘Well, Doctor,’ said Jack, looking even taller than usual and far more intimidating. ‘Good morning to you, or rather good afternoon. This is a strange hour to report aboard – this is cutting it pretty fine – this is coming it tolerably high, I believe. Do you know you very nearly made us miss our tide? Miss our tide right under the Admiral’s front window? Did not you see the Blue Peter flying all through the forenoon watch – nay, watch after God-damned watch? I must tell you, sir, that I have known men headed up in a barrel and thrown overboard for less: far less. Mr Mowett, you may round in and set the jib and forestaysail at last. At last,’ he said with heavy emphasis, looking at Stephen. ‘Why, you are all wet. Surely you did not fall in, like a mere lubber?’

      ‘I did not,’ said Stephen, goaded out of his humility. ‘The sea it was that rose.’

      ‘Well, you must not stand there, dripping all over the deck; it ain’t a pretty sight, and you may take cold. Come and shift yourself. Your sea-chest is in my cabin: at least it had some notion of punctuality.’

      ‘Jack,’ said Stephen, shedding his breeches in the cabin, ‘I beg your pardon. I am very sorry for my lateness. I regret it extremely.’

      ‘Punctuality,’ said Captain Aubrey: but then, feeling that this, the beginning of a homily on the great naval virtue, was hardly generous, he shook Stephen’s free hand and went on, ‘Damn my eyes, I was like a cat on hot tiles all through this vile morning and afternoon; so I spoke a little hasty. Join me on deck when you are shifted, Stephen. Bring the other glass, and we will take a last look at the shore before we round the Wight.’

      The day was sparkling clear, the powerful telescopes showed the Sally Port sharp and bright, the inn and its white balcony, and on the balcony Sophie and Diana side by side, Jagiello tall on Diana’s arm, his arm in a sling, and next to Sophie a diminishing row of heads that must be the children: a flutter of handkerchiefs from time to time. ‘There is Jagiello,’ said Stephen. ‘I came down in his coach. That was the source of the trouble.’

      ‘But surely Jagiello is a most prodigious whip?’

      ‘Sure he is Jehu come again: we fairly swept out of London, and he driving in the Lithuanian manner, standing up and leaning out over his team, encouraging them with howls. This was very well for a while, and Diana and I were able to have a word in peace, because he and his cattle spoke the same language; but when we came to change horses the case was altered. Furthermore, Jagiello is not used to driving in England: Lithuania is an aristocratic country where the common people get out of the way, and when the slow wagon from Petersfield declined to pull over he was so displeased that he determined to shave it very close, by way of reproof. But the wagoner fetched the off-hand leader such a puck with his whip that we swerved, took a post and lost a wheel. No great harm, since we did not overturn, and once we had roused out a smith and he had lit his forge all was well in a couple of hours, apart from Jagiello’s arm, which had a sad wrench. I have rarely seen anyone so vexed. He told me privately that he would never have exceeded a hand-canter if he had known he was to drive in a mere howling democracy. That was scarcely just; but then he was horribly cast down, with Diana watching.’

      ‘Excitable foreigners,’ said Jack. ‘Jagiello is such a fine fellow that sometimes you almost forget it, but at-bottom he is only a foreigner, poor soul. I suppose you took the coach on?’

      ‘I did not. Diana took it, so she did, the sun being up by then. She is a far better fist with a four-in-hand than I am, the creature.’

      He