Desolation Island. Patrick O’Brian

you a salmon, and a pair of plaice.’

      ‘Sophie’s fish!’ cried Jack. ‘God’s my life, they had gone completely out of my mind. Thank you, Stephen: you are a friend in a thousand.’

      They rode through Cosham in silence, avoiding drunken seamen, drunken soldiers, and drunken women. Stephen knew that Jack had repaired his fortunes in the Mauritius campaign: even with the admiral’s share, the proctors’ fees, and the civilians’ jobbery deducted, the recaptured Indiamen alone must have set him quite high in the list of captains who had done well out of prizemoney. But even so … When they were clear of the houses he said, ‘As such I should tell you some of the disagreeable things that are said to fall to friends; yet since I have so lately borrowed a large sum of money from you, I can scarcely cry up thrift, nor even common prudence, with much decency or conviction. I am struck dumb; and must content myself with observing that Lord Anson, whose wealth had the same source as yours, was said to have gone round the world, but never into the world.’

      ‘I take your meaning,’ said Jack. ‘You think they are sharps and I am a flat?’

      ‘I assert nothing: only that in your place I should not play with those men again.’

      ‘Oh come, Stephen, a judge, for all love? And a man so high in Government service?’

      ‘I make no accusation. Though if I had a certainty where in fact I have only a suspicion, a man’s being a judge would not weigh heavily. Sure, it is weak and illiberal to speak slightingly of any considerable body of men; yet it so happens that the only judges I have known have been froward companions, and it occurs to me that not only are they subjected to the evil influence of authority but also to that of righteous indignation, which is even more deleterious. Those who judge and sentence criminals address them with an unbridled, vindictive righteousness that would be excessive in an archangel and that is indecent to the highest degree in one sinner speaking to another, and he defenceless. Righteous indignation every day, and publicly applauded! I remember an acquaintance of mine literally foaming – there was a line of white between his lips – as he condemned a wretched youth to transportation for carnal knowledge of a fine bold up-standing wench: yet this same man was himself a smell-smock, a cold, determined lecher, a voluptuary, a libertine, a discreet frequenter of Mother Abbot’s establishment in Dover Street; while another, in whose house I have drunk uncustomed wine, tea, and brandy, told a smuggler, with great vehemence, that society must be protected from such wicked men as he and his accomplices. Do not suppose, however, that I am calling this judge of yours a sharper: his respectability may be no more than a useful screen.’

      ‘Well, I shall take care of them,’ said Jack. ‘I have given them another meeting next week, but I shall keep a weather-eye wide open. A delicate business … it would never do to offend Andrew Wray…’

      They walked their horses up the hill, and over on the right a nightjar churred, perched lengthways on the gibbet at the crest. After half a mile Jack said, ‘I cannot believe it of him. He is a great man in the City, apart from anything else. He understands the movement of the Funds, and once he told me that if I put money into Bank Stock, I should certainly make a handsome profit before the month was out. And sure enough, Mr Perceval made a statement, and some people cleared thousands. But I am not such a flat as that, Stephen; stocks and shares is gambling, and I stick to what I understand: ships and horses.’

      ‘And silver-mining.’

      ‘That is entirely different,’ cried Jack. ‘As I keep telling Sophie, the Lowthers did not have to understand coal when it was found on their land: all they had to do was to listen to experts, see that proper measures were taken, and then set up a coach and six, become the richest family in the north, with God knows how many members in Parliament and one of them now a lord of the Admiralty at this very minute – but no, she cannot abide poor Kimber, though he is a very civil, obliging little man: calls him a projector. We went to the play last time we were in town, and there was a fellow there, on the stage, that said he could not tell how it was, but every time he and his wife disagreed, it so happened that she was invariably in the wrong: and although everybody simpered and clapped, I thought he put it very well, and I whispered “Coal” in Sophie’s ear; but she was laughing so hearty she did not catch it.’ He sighed: and then, in a different tone, he said, ‘Lord, Stephen, how Arcturus blazes! The orange star up there. We shall have such a blow from the south-west tomorrow, or I’m a Dutchman: still, ’tis an ill wind that spoils the broth, you know.’

      Their broth was waiting for them at the cottage, with Sophie, pink and sleepy, the very type of dutiful wife, to ladle it out for them. While Stephen was supping his, Jack left the room and came back with a beautiful model of a ship. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s Moses Jenkins’ work, the Dockyard sculptor. Now that’s what I call art – Pheidias ain’t in the running. You recognize her, of course?’

      Stephen bent low to see the ship as she would appear from the waterline. The figurehead, a lady in a flowing gown, mysteriously opening a covered dish, or perhaps playing cymbals, was vaguely familiar, but he could not put a name to her until his eye caught a bulbous yellow spotted dog in the sweep of the head just behind. ‘The horrible old – that is to say, the Leopard,’ he said.

      ‘Exactly so,’ said Jack, with an affectionate, approving look. ‘I was afraid her altered stern-transom might have thrown you out, but you smoked her right away. The new-built Leopard. Here is her diagonal bracing, do you see? Roberts’s iron-plate knees. Everything abaft the clamps of the quarterdeck refashioned. The only thing I do not quite care for is the new-fangled stern-post. It is all exactly to scale, and her measurements are, gundeck one hundred and forty-six foot five inches, keel one hundred and twenty foot and three-quarters of an inch, beam forty foot eight, and tonnage by our measurement, one thousand and fifty-six. The very thing for a really distant voyage! She only draws fifteen foot eight abaft, light, yet she has seventeen foot six depth of hold! You remember how we cried out for tenpenny nails in the dear old Surprise? Leopard’s maw will be stuffed with tenpenny nails, and with all kinds of other stores too, such quantities of ’em. And she has plenty of teeth, as you see: twenty-two twenty-four-pounders on the lower deck, twenty-two twelve-pounders on the upper deck, a couple of six-pounders on her forecastle, and four five-pounders on the quarterdeck; and I shall take my brass nines as stern-chasers. A broadside weight of metal of four hundred and forty-eight pound, more than enough to blow any Dutch or French frigate out of the water: for they have no ship of the line in the Spice Islands, so far away.’

      ‘The Spice Islands,’ murmured Stephen; and then, feeling that something more was called for, ‘What would her complement be, now?’

      ‘Three hundred and forty-three. Four lieutenants, three Marine officers, ten midshipmen: and even the surgeon has two mates, Stephen. No want of company, nor no want of room. And another charming thing about this commission is that at last I have time to prepare for it, and have people after my own heart. Tom Pullings is to be my first lieutenant, Babbington is on his way back from the West Indies, and I hope to pick up Mowett at the Cape. You will see Pullings on Thursday, along with Heywood. And Tom will be as eager as we are to hear about those waters and about Bligh, because obviously he takes over if – I mean, he would be in command if I were on shore.’

      Thursday brought Mr Pullings, and in his candid pleasure at seeing Jack and Stephen again he seemed scarcely to have changed from the long-legged, long-armed, shy, friendly, tubular youth Stephen had first met as a midshipman so many years ago; but in fact he was a man of far greater weight, more burly both in character and person. It was apparent, from his competent handling of young George, produced for his inspection, and from his behaviour to Captain Heywood, that he was now in the full tide of his life, and swimming well. His behaviour was of course perfectly deferential, but it was that of a man who had seen a great deal of service, and who thoroughly understood his profession.

      Yet in spite of their eagerness, they learnt little about Bligh. ‘He did not wish to say anything against Captain Bligh – a capital navigator – very touchy himself, but had no notion of how he offended others – would give you the lie in front of all hands one day and invite you to dinner the next – you never knew where you were with him – led Christian,