The Ionian Mission. Patrick O’Brian

on the beam that traverses my cabin is two inches thick, and although I am no Goliath my head beats against it. Sure, I have known better accommodations in a frigate; whereas this, if I do not mistake, is a ship of the line, no less.’

      ‘I do not like to sound discontented neither,’ said Pullings, ‘nor to crab any ship I belong to; but between you and me, Doctor, between you and me, she is more what we call a floating coffin than a ship. And as for the damp, what do you expect? She was built in Sankey’s yard, one of the Forty Thieves: twenty-year-old wood and green stuff with the sap in it all clapped together promiscuous and fastened with copper – precious little copper – and then overmasted to please the landsmen’s fancy, so that when it comes on to blow her timbers all sprawl abroad. She is British-built, sir, and most of what we have sailed in, you and I, have been Spanish or French. They may not be very clever at fighting or sailing ’em, but God love us, they do know how to build.’ He put down his glass and said, ‘I do wish we had a can of Margate beer. But beer ain’t genteel.’

      ‘It might be more healthy,’ said Stephen. ‘So we are to put in at Plymouth, I hear?’

      ‘That’s right, sir: to complete. You will have your two mates – and don’t I wish they may like it, when they see the dog-holes where we must stow them – and we must find the best part of our crew, three hundred hands or so. Lord, Doctor, how I hope we can get hold of some right seamen! The Captain can always fill half a frigate with good men come volunteerly, but they won’t amount to much in a ship of the line – no prize-money in a ship of the line on blockade. And of course we are to have three more lieutenants and maybe a chaplain: the Captain is against it, but Admiral Thornton likes to have chaplains aboard and we may have to carry half a dozen out for the fleet. He is rather a blue-light admiral, though a good fighting-man, and he thinks it encourages the hands to have a proper funeral, with the words said by a real parson. Then we must have midshipmen, and this time the Captain swears he will enter none but what are regularly bred to the sea, none but what can hand, reef and steer, work their tides and take double altitudes, and understand the mathematics; he is not going to take a floating nursery, says he. For although you may scarcely believe it, Doctor, a dozen good seamanlike reefers are very useful aboard, learning the raw hands their duty; we are sure to have a good many – raw hands I mean – and they must learn their duty pretty quick, with the French grown so bold and the Americans coming right up into the Channel.’

      ‘Are not the Frenchmen all shut up in Rochefort and Brest?’

      ‘Their ships of the line: but when it comes on to blow hard from the east and our squadrons have to run for Torbay, their frigates slip out and chew up our merchantmen something cruel. I dare say we shall have a convoy to see down to the Straits. And then there are the privateers too, very presumptuous reptiles in the Bay. Still, the receiving ships may give us some decent drafts: the Captain has good friends in Plymouth. I hope so indeed, because there is no man in the service to work them up into a smart crew like the Captain, and a smart crew will offset an unweatherly slab-sided old ship. She has the guns, after all, and I can just see him sending her smack into the French line, if only they come out of Toulon, smack into the middle, both broadsides roaring.’ The port, in addition to cochineal, contained a good deal of impure alcohol, and Pullings, a little elevated, cried, ‘Both broadsides into the thick of ’em – breaks the line – takes a first-rate – takes another – he is made a lord, and Tom Pullings a commander at last!’ He turned his glowing, radiant face to the opening door.

      ‘Well, sir, I am sure you shall be before long,’ said Preserved Killick. He was the Captain’s steward, a coarse, plain, ugly seaman, still quite unpolished in spite of his years of office, but a very old shipmate and therefore entitled to be familiar in an empty wardroom.

      ‘Preserved Killick,’ said Stephen, shaking his hand, ‘I am happy to see you. Drink this,’ – handing him his glass – ‘it will do you good.’

      ‘Thankee, sir,’ said Killick, tossing it off without a wink; and in an official voice, though without changing his uncouth, easy posture, he went on, ‘Captain’s compliments and whenever Dr M has the leisure and inclination for a little music, would welcome his company in the cabin. Which he is a-tuning of his old fiddle this minute, sir.’

      Chapter Two

      At a broad table on the Worcester’s quarterdeck sat her first lieutenant, with the Captain’s clerk, the surgeon, the purser, the bosun, and her other standing officers on either side of him. Over to starboard stood a vague heap of men, most of them poorly clothed, most of them looking lost and miserable, all of them smelling of soap, the receiving-ship having scrubbed them until they shone; but a few seemed quite at home, and when Mr Pullings called out ‘Next’ one of these stepped up to the table and touched his knuckles to his forehead and stood there swaying gently, a middle-aged man in loose trousers and a torn blue jacket with metal buttons, a bright red handkerchief round his neck. He looked horribly dissipated and he had certainly been fighting the night before; Pullings gazed at him with great satisfaction and said, ‘Well, Phelps, are you come to add to our burden?’

      ‘That’s right, sir,’ said Phelps, and then very rapidly to the clerk, ‘Ebenezer Phelps, born at Dock in sixty-nine, dwelling at Gorham’s Rents, Dock, thirty-four years at sea, last ship Wheel ’em Along, sheet-anchor man.’

      ‘And before that Circe and Venerable,’ said Pullings. ‘And a damned bad character from both. Rate him able. Phelps, you had better take a caulk below, before the Captain sees you. Next.’

      A powerful bosun’s mate led up a pale knock-kneed man in breeches and part of what was once a coachman’s great-coat: his name was William Old.

      ‘What was your trade, Old?’ asked Pullings kindly.

      ‘I don’t like to boast,’ said Old, gathering confidence, ‘but I was a trifler.’ There was a momentary hush; the clerk looked up from his book with a frown; the bosun’s mate whispered, ‘Mind your luff, mate,’ in a hoarse growl, and Old added, ‘Not a sadware man, sir, nor a hollow-ware man, but a trifler, a journeyman trifler. But the whole pewter trade, sadware and all, is gone to the dogs, and – ’

      ‘Have you ever been to sea?’ asked Pullings.

      ‘I once went to Margate, sir.’

      ‘Rate him landman, if he passes the Doctor,’ said Pullings. ‘He may be some use as armourer’s crew. Next.’

      ‘Oh sir,’ cried the journeyman trifler, about to be led off by the bosun’s mate, ‘Oh sir, if you please: may I have my bounty now, your honour? My wife is waiting there on the quay, with the children.’

      ‘Explain to him about the ticket, Jobling,’ said Pullings to the bosun’s mate. ‘Next.’

      Now it was the turn of the pressed men, several right seamen among them, some taken far out in the offing from homeward-bound merchant ships by Mowett in the barge, others captured ashore by the gang. The first of them, a man called Yeats, looked more like a prosperous gardener, which indeed he was, as he explained to the lieutenant: a nurseryman. He had half an acre under glass – his business going well – would be ruined if he were pressed – his wife did not understand the trade, and she was expecting. His extreme distress was evident; so was his sincerity.

      ‘What is that anchor doing on your hand?’ asked Pullings, pointing to the mark, tattooed blue and red. ‘You have been to sea: do not deny it.’

      Yes, he had been to sea when he was a boy, five months in Hermione, sick almost all the time, and when she was paid off here in Hamoaze he had walked inland as far as ever he could and had never come near the shore again until Thursday, when the press-gang took him as he was crossing the bridge to visit an important customer at Saltash. His business would be ruined if he did not go home.

      ‘Well, I am sorry for it, Yeats,’ said Pullings. ‘But the law is the law: any man that has used the sea may be pressed.’ In cases like this some officers would make observations about the necessity for manning the fleet, about serving – preserving – the country, even about patriotism, for the