Desolation Island. Patrick O’Brian

and deliberation. I shall not see you again, Stephen. Forgive me, but it would not answer. Think of me kindly, for your friendship is very dear to me. DV.’

      In a brief flare of rebellion, anger and frustration he thought of his enormous expense of spirit these last few weeks, of the mounting hope that he had indulged and fostered in spite of his judgement and of their frequently violent disagreements; but the flame died, leaving not so much an active sorrow as a black and wordless desolation.

      When he was walking down the street to the coffee-house, his eye, long accustomed to such things, had automatically taken notice of the two men following him. They were still there when he came out, but he was utterly indifferent to their presence. They preserved him, however, from an ugly encounter in the Green Park, where he wandered among the trees in a deep abstraction, his feet slowly guiding him eastwards to his inn, where he sank straight into a sleep as dull and deep as lead.

      He was spared the slow waking and reconstruction of the day before by Abel, the boots, thundering at the door with the news that there was a messenger who would take no denial, an official messenger who must put his letter into the Doctor’s hands.

      ‘Let him come up,’ said Stephen.

      It was the briefest note, requesting or rather requiring Stephen’s presence at the Admiralty at half past eight o’clock rather than at the appointed time of four. The tone was unusual.

      ‘Is there an answer, sir?’ asked the messenger.

      ‘There is,’ said Stephen, and he wrote it with an equally cold formality: ‘Dr Maturin presents his compliments to Admiral Sievewright, and will wait upon him at half past eight this morning.’

      At a quarter to nine the Admiral was still waiting for Dr Maturin and indeed at nine o’clock itself, for Stephen, hurrying across the parade, had met the former chief of naval intelligence, Sir Joseph Blaine, a keen entomologist and a sure friend, who had just come from an early meeting at the Cabinet Office. They had a hasty word, for Stephen was already late, contracted to meet later in the day and so parted, Stephen to keep his appointment, and Sir Joseph to walk in St James’s Park.

      ‘Hey, hey, Dr Maturin,’ cried the Admiral, as he came into the room, ‘what the Devil is all this? The Home Office people have picked up a couple of trollops that spend their time gathering information, and they have found your name in their papers.’

      ‘I do not understand you, sir,’ said Stephen, looking coldly at the Admiral. This was the first time he had seen him without the actual head of the department, Mr Warren.

      ‘Well now,’ said the sailor, ‘I shall not beat about the bush. There are these two women, a Mrs Wogan and a Mrs Villiers: the Secretary of State’s office has had its eye on them for some time, particularly on Wogan – connections with some dubious characters among the royalist Frenchmen over here and with American agents. At last they decided to act, and upon my word it was high time: in Wogan’s house they found some very surprising papers indeed, many of them sent under cover to Villiers and passed on by her; and in Villiers’ lodgings they found a number of letters, including these.’ He opened a folder, and Stephen saw his own handwriting. ‘Well, there you are,’ said the Admiral, having waited in vain for Stephen to speak. ‘I have laid all my cards on the table, fair and square. The Home Office insist upon an explanation. What am I to tell them?’

      ‘One card is missing,’ said Stephen. ‘How does it come about that the Home Office should apply to you for information? Am I to understand that my character, that the nature of my activities has been divulged to a third party without my knowledge? Against my express understanding with this department? Against all the laws of sound intelligence?’ Stephen’s intelligence work was of prime importance to him: he hated the entire Napoleonic tyranny with a most passionate loathing, and he knew, quite objectively, that he had been able to give it some of the shrewdest blows it had ever received in this line of combat. He also knew the strange diversity of the various British intelligence services and the shocking, amateurish permeability of some of them – an insecurity that might only too easily put an end to his usefulness and his life. What he did not know, however, for his mind was dull that morning, was that the Admiral was lying: Mrs Wogan had possessed herself, among other things, of some naval papers through a junior civil lord of the Admiralty; the Home Office had therefore sent the evidence to the Admiral, and the Admiral it was who required the explanation. His bluff, frank approach had imposed upon the diminished Maturin, who felt a red glow of anger burning up his apathy – rage at the apparent betrayal of his identity. ‘Upon my soul,’ said Stephen in a stronger voice, ‘it is I who must do the insisting. I desire you to tell me directly how it happens that the Secretary of State’s people come to take notice of my name to you.’

      The Admiral was puzzled to come off handsomely, and in the hope of drowning the question he adopted a more mollifying tone and said, ‘First let me tell you of the steps that have been taken. All the leaks have been plugged, you may be sure of that. We interrogated the women separately, and Warren soon extracted enough to hang Wogan out of hand. But she has some very respectable, or at least some very influential protectors – she is a remarkably fine woman – and in view of that, and the undesirability of a trial, and her voluntary production of some useful names, we struck a bargain: she pleads guilty to a charge that will mean her being sent over the water, no more. We could have brought any number of capital charges, including attempted murder, since she shot the wig off the messenger’s head, but we decided to play it quiet. As for Villiers, the other one, we have decided not to proceed: her explanation that she regarded the passing-on of the letters as a mere friendly act – that she looked upon ’em as an intrigue on the part of Wogan with a married man – was hard to break down; and then her having become an American citizen raised grave legal difficulties. Government wants no further complications with the Americans at this stage of the war: our pressing of men out of their ships is bad enough, without our pressing their women too. And in fact she may have been innocent. Looking at her, it seemed to me that her plea of helping in an amour was very likely, very much in character. She stood up for herself amazingly, an even finer woman than Wogan, straight as an arrow, glaring at us like a wild cat, flushed with anger, blackguarding the Home Office man like a trooper – lovely bosom trembling, ha, ha! I came in for a couple of broad-sides – wish there had been more – amorous intrigues, ha, ha, ha!’

      ‘You are impertinent, sir. You forget yourself. I insist upon your answering my question, instead of indulging yourself in this blackguardly manner.’

      In the pleasures of his warm and luscious imagination the Admiral had indeed forgotten himself, but these words brought him violently back to the present. He turned pale, and half rising from his seat he cried, ‘Let me remind you, Dr Maturin, that there is such a thing as discipline in this service.’

      ‘And let me remind you, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘that there is such a thing as respect for one’s word. And furthermore, I have to observe that your manner of speaking of this lady would be gross in a libidinous pot-boy. In your mouth it is offensive to the highest degree. Bread and blood, sir, I have pulled a man’s nose for less. Good day to you, sir: you know where to find me.’ He walked out of the room, collided with a clerk who was in the act of opening the door, and thrust past him into the corridor.

      ‘Send for a file of Marines,’ roared the Admiral, now scarlet in the face.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said the clerk. ‘Here is Sir Joseph, to know whether Dr Maturin is still within. The Marines directly, sir.’

      Leaving by the little green confidential door that gave on to the park, Stephen felt his anger die away as weariness came down on him like a pall, extinguishing the fire and with it all concern. Yet he had not walked eastwards a quarter of a mile before he became aware that his knees and hands were trembling, and that his nerves jangled intolerably, as though they had been flayed: he walked faster, towards the Grapes and the square bottle on his mantelshelf.

      Mrs Broad, taking the sun at her door, saw him at the far end of the street; she read his face when he was still quite a long way off, and as he turned in she called out in her fat, cheerful voice, ‘You are just in time for a late breakfast, sir. Now pray go in and sit in the parlour; there is a pure