Clarissa Oakes Part 7

'I believe I have seen it done,' said Stephen.

'Not above five thousand times,' said Jack inwardly, and aloud 'And if it also comes on to blow and rain uncommon hard, we take battens, stout laths of wood, that fit against the coaming, the raised rim of the hatchway, and so pin the tarpaulin down drum-tight. Some people do it by nailing the batten to the deck, but it is a sad, sloppy, unseamanlike way of carrying on, and we have cleats. I will show them to you first thing in the morning.'

For seamen first thing in the morning meant that dismal hour at the f.a.g-end of an old and weary night when elm-tree pumps and head-pumps flood the already sodden forecastle, upper deck and quarterdeck with water, and the still sleep-sodden hands move aft in gangs, sanding, holystoning, sweeping and flogging more or less dry: for some seamen it also meant the time when Reade, still bleary with opium, was carried down to a sheltered extension of the sick-berth, there to be watched by Padeen.

For Stephen however it meant first thing in the Christian day, and it was in this sense that Oakes came below with the Captain's compliments and would the Doctor like to see the cleats they had spoken of? He was a pale, silent, dangerous-looking young man now, no longer an oafish overgrown youth; but he managed a smile for Stephen and added 'You might see something else too.'

The something else was a mildly ruffled sea, unvarying Prussian blue almost to the horizon under a pure pale sky: the sun just clear of the eastern ocean, the moon sinking into it on the other hand: and on the starboard bow a low domed island of some size, far off but already as green as a good emerald in that slanting light. The breeze, blowing directly from this island, was so faint that it scarcely whispered in the rigging, nor filled the towering array of sails with any firm conviction; yet it seemed to Stephen that the air brought the scent of land.

'Where is the Captain, Barber?' he asked a seaman on the gangway.

'He is at the masthead, sir.'

So, it appeared, was everyone else who could command an eminence and a telescope. Hammocks had not yet been piped up, but the watch below had come on deck of their own accord, and there they were, gazing at the distant island with great satisfaction, saying very little. Six bells, and John Brampton's spell at the wheel was done: he was a young smuggler and privateersman from Shelmerston, one of the Sethian persuasion, but less rigid than his fellows, and in his cheerful way he called out 'Good morning, sir,' as he went forward.

'Good morning, John,' Stephen replied, and pausing, Brampton asked him whether he did not admire the Captain. 'Never out. We knew he was not cracking on for sport; and there she lies!'

'Where? Where?'

'Right in with the island. Uncle Slade with his spygla.s.s in the fore jack-crosstrees made her out directly, when the sun lit up her sails. You can't deceive the Captain, ha, ha, ha!' He was still laughing when he seized the foremast shroud and ran up to join his uncle.

'Good morning, Doctor,' said Jack, reaching the deck by way of a back-stay, his boyish agility making an odd contrast with his worn face. 'What news of Reade?'

'He is doing well so far,' said Stephen. 'No fever: some discomfort, but no very grievous pain - he can lie easy. Mr Martin is with him now, in the sick-berth.'

'I am so glad,' said Jack. 'And I beg pardon for being aloft when I sent word: a sail had been sighted. But, however, you are come to see these cleats. Shall we step down to the upper deck?'

'Would you first tell me about this island, and your sail?'

'Why, it is Captain Cook's Annamooka, exactly where he set it down.'

'One of the Friendly Isles?'

'Just so. Did I not mention it last night?'

'You did not. But I rejoice to hear it. And what of your sail?'

'It is right in with the sh.o.r.e. From the masthead you can still see it tolerably well with a gla.s.s: a European vessel, almost certainly a whaler - I saw a school of about twenty blowing at first light.'

'How I hope you will sail straight in, take your prize and turn us ash.o.r.e for a thorough examination of the island's flora, fauna and . . .'

'Coffee's up, sir,' said Killick.

'Shall we go down?' asked Jack; and on the upper deck he showed Stephen the after-hatchway, its coaming and its cleats. 'A pin pa.s.sed through this hole across the cleat, do you see, and grips the batten tight. It was not my invention but my predecessor's. You remember Edward Hamilton?'

'I believe not.'

'Oh come, Stephen. Sir Edward Hamilton, who commanded the Surprise when she cut out the Hennione. The man who was dismissed the service for seizing his gunner up in the rigging.'

'Must you not seize a gunner up in the rigging?'

'Oh dear me, no. He is protected by his warrant, just as you are. Anyone else you may seize up, and flog too; but all you can do to an officer that holds a warrant or a commission is to confine him to his cabin until he is brought to a court-martial. Hamilton was well with the Prince of Wales, however, and he was reinstated quite soon ... It is whimsical enough to think that two captains of the Surprise should have been struck off and then brought back.'

Jack had invited Pullings and Oakes to breakfast, and since service matters were allowed to be discussed at this meal, the westward currents, the tide, the adverse breeze, the probable nature and nationality of the distant sail, the frigate's urgent need of water, livestock, vegetables and coconuts were canva.s.sed, together with the desirability of intensive work on all the rigging, running and standing; but Jack did talk about other things, and he did ask after Mrs Oakes. 'She is very well, sir, I thank you,' said Oakes flushing, 'but she stumbled against a locker in the heavy weather, and she means to keep to her cabin for some time.'

Stephen excused himself quite early: apart from anything else this was as dull a breakfast as Jack had ever given, the host himself in poor spirits despite his landfall, guests obscurely oppressed, somehow shifty. Martin, relieved by Padeen and the little girls at eight bells, was already at the rail. 'I give you joy of the Friendly Isles,' he said, 'and of the prospect of a n.o.ble prize. All the hands who have made the journey to the main jack-crosstrees a.s.sure me that she is an American whaler, very deep-laden with spermaceti and no doubt great quant.i.ties of ambergris. Do you suppose the Captain means to go straight for her in the Nelson fashion, take her, and give us a run on the island? How I hope so!'

'So indeed do I. What mind is indifferent to a prize? And in addition to this splendid prize, a week of walking about on Annamooka - that indeed would be bliss. I believe it has a very curious chestnut-coloured cuckoo, and some rails, while the people are as amiable as can be, apart from a certain thievishness.'

'I have heard that there is an owl in the Friendly Isles,' said Martin.

'There she blows!' cried Stephen, together with a score of his shipmates: the familiar forward-pointing single jet, a hundred yards to windward, was followed by a black surging as the whale turned and dived, an ancient solitary bull with a lacerated tail. 'An owl, Nathaniel Martin? An owl in Polynesia? You amaze me.'

'I heard it on good authority. But here is the bosun, who has been to Tongataboo, no great way off. Mr Bulkeley,' calling down into the waist, 'did you see any owls in Tongataboo?'

'Owls? G.o.d bless you, sir,' replied the bosun in his carrying voice, 'there was one tree near the watering-place so thick with owls you could hardly tell which was tree and which was owls. Purple owls.'

'Did they have ears, Mr Bulkeley?' asked Martin, as one who doubts the value of his question.

'That I cannot take my oath on, sir; and I should hazard a lie if I said yea or nay.'

'Ears or no ears,' said Stephen after a while, 'I fear it will be long before ever we see either prize or fowl. Quite early Captain Aubrey used that ominous, ill-sounding word still -the ship could still be seen from a certain lofty point. And at breakfast he explained to me that not only was this wind, this breeze, this poxed half-hearted zephyr, breathing directly from the island to us, but that in addition to an adverse but presumably temporary tide there was also a permanent current bearing us to the west. He said it was by no means impossible that we should beat to and fro, perpetually receding in spite of all our efforts - see how the men brace the yard a little sharper, and haul on the bowline. Such zeal! They dearly love a prize.'

'So do I,' said Martin. 'I do not believe I could be called a worshipper of Mammon, but prize-money is different, and I am now like the tiger that has once tasted human blood. Yet I hope the Captain was making game of you, as the bosun was almost certainly making game of me just now.'

'It may well be; but I remember how we have lain to or sailed up and down trying to get into a port before this, or even out of one, for weeks on end, hungry, thirsty, and discontented. Let us not be dismal, however: let us suppose that we sail in tomorrow, butcher the whalers to a man, take their goods from them, and carry our b.u.t.terfly-nets and collecting-cases into those verdant groves.'

The Surprise sailed gently on, slanting in towards Annamooka; and as they leant there on the rail, gazing out over a sea that had now turned a royal blue with lighter paths wandering over its smooth surface, and talking of their earlier expeditions and their hopes of those so soon to come, it seemed to Stephen that he had the old Martin at his side, open, ingenuous, amiable. How the change had come about Stephen could not tell with any precision: perhaps it was connected with prosperity and family cares, with jealousy, with causes as yet unper-ceived; but in any event their former close bonds of friendship had certainly grown looser. This morning however they talked away without the least reserve. They saw an unknown tern, and speculated upon its affinities with terns they knew; they saw what might possibly have been a Latham's albatross in the extreme distance; the sun shone down upon them with increasing force.

Once a boat was lowered down to tow the ship's head round when she had not quite enough way on her to go about; once they were desired to move further aft so that the awning might be spread. 'This would be a perfect day for Mrs Oakes to take the air,' observed Stephen. 'She has not been on deck since it began to blow: but unhappily it seemed that she hurt her head in the rough weather, and must stay below for a while. I asked Oakes whether he would like me to see her, but he says it was only a bruise and a shaking - a lee-lurch, no doubt.'

'The hound,' said Martin in a low, vehement voice, his face quite changed, 'the infernal young hound, he beats her.'

Captain Aubrey had not been making game of them. Day after day the Surprise tried to work to windward, and sometimes by favour of the tide or a stronger breeze she gained a little, so that the ship at Annamooka could be seen even from the deck, only to lose it in the flat calm of the night.

Although food was uncomfortably low, Jack did not like to bear away for Tongataboo while a possible prize lay in sight. A seaman and even more an officer of the Royal Navy was deeply attached to prizes, the only possible source of a fortune. But that love was not to be compared to the privateer's consuming pa.s.sion, for his prize-taking was his whole way of life, his sole raison d'etre. The Surprises therefore now sailed the ship with the closest possible attention to every shift in the breeze, antic.i.p.ating orders and keeping her full, in spite of the fact that as the hours and days went by the likelihood of that distant whaler being fair prize grew steadily less. She showed a provoking stolidity, a disinclination to try to escape by night: morning after morning she was still there, her yards crossed, her sails bent. The mood in the Surprise changed from cheerfulness to something not far from restless discontent, with a tendency to be quarrelsome.

On the evening of Thursday, after quarters, Mrs Oakes came on deck again, sitting in her usual place by the taffrail. She had a black eye of some days age, now ringed with yellow and green, and as a partial shade she wore a piece of cloth over her head, as though a close-reef topsail breeze were blowing.

'I hope I see you well, ma'am," said Stephen, bowing. 'Mr Oakes told us you had had a fall, and I should have called, had he not dissuaded me.'

'I wish you had, dear Doctor,' said Mrs Oakes. 'I have been sadly bored. It was nothing to make anyone keep her bed -only this squalid, ign.o.ble black eye - but even if the dreadful weather had not kept me below, I felt I could not show myself looking like a female prize-fighter. I should not really appear now, if dark were not falling fast.'

Jack came aft, made civil enquiries and returned to his task of making a little windward progress in the most untoward circ.u.mstances. Pullings, Martin and West appeared and they talked with a fair amount of animation, but it appeared to Stephen that whereas their dislike of one another or at least the tension between them had increased, their attentiveness to Clarissa had declined in much the same proportion as her looks. She, for her part, was particularly agreeable to them all, particularly winning.

On later reflection it seemed to him that this was too simple. There was also another emotion abroad, perhaps best defined as a want of regard: just on whose part he could scarcely say. Nor could he recall any specific instance.

Yet the impression was there, and it was strengthened next day not only by the tone of the officers but by the att.i.tude of some of the hands. Although many, indeed most, smiled upon her with the same genial warmth, there were some faces whose look was questioning, puzzled, even deliberately expressionless. The great matter of this next day however was the changing of the sails, each in turn for its lighter brother. Jack Aubrey, as sensitive as a cat to changes in the weather, had had the p.r.i.c.king of his thumbs confirmed by the barometer; but so far he could not tell the direction of the coming breeze, and rather than disappoint all hands he had merely given the order. And since the Surprise owned a full wardrobe of well over thirty, a great deal of activity was called for; quite why, Stephen could not make out - the present suit of sails seemed perfectly adequate to him - but what he could make out, and make out quite clearly, was that when the Captain was not on deck there was much more d.a.m.ning of eyes and limbs than usual, and much more of the wrangling and contention and reluctant obedience not uncommon in a privateer but rare and very dangerous in the Royal Navy.

He also made out the fact that for one foremost jack who looked askance at Clarissa, there were half a dozen who cast a cold eye on Oakes. Yet it was not when Oakes was on duty that Jack, leaning over the side with Adams to measure the salinity, heard a voice float down from the fore crosstrees in answer to the cry 'Don't you know you must pa.s.s the selvagee first, d.a.m.n your eyes?' a low voice but perfectly distinct: 'Who the Devil cares what you say?' Jack looked up, said 'Mr West, take that man's name,' and carried on with his task.

His breeze began to blow from the south, right on the frigate's beam, late in the forenoon watch. By the time the hands were piped to dinner the water was singing down her side, her deck had a slope of some ten or twelve degrees and the whole mood aboard had changed: laughter, merriment.

By the time the hands had eaten their dinner the island was so much nearer that it filled the eighth part of the horizon, and a fine great pahi, a double canoe with a deckhouse, could be seen putting off the sh.o.r.e, hoisting its immense peaked sail and coming out to meet them on the opposite tack.

'Killick,' said Jack, 'rouse out my box of red feathers, the chest of island presents, and whatever we have left in the way of sweetmeats.'

'Sir,' said Oakes, 'masthead says there is a white man aboard.'

'In a coat?'

'Yes, sir: and a hat.'

'Very good, Mr Oakes: thank you. Killick, the lightest coat you can find, number three sc.r.a.per and a clean pair of duck trousers. And pa.s.s the word for Captain Pullings. Tom, you know the South Sea islanders as well as I do. They are delightful creatures, but n.o.body is to be allowed below except those that I invite into the cabin, and anything movable on deck is to be screwed down, including the anchor. Doctor, of our people, who do you think speaks South Seas best, being at the same time intelligent, if possible?'

'There is the bosun; but he might prove a little over-facetious as an interpreter. I should suggest Owen or John Brampton or Craddock.'

Tom Pullings had barely time to make the ship presentable, and Captain Aubrey had spent no more than five minutes on the spotless deck in his spotless trousers before the swift-sailing pahi was within hail. The Surprise heaved to with her main topsail laid to the mast and the canoe, with naval politeness, ran under her stern and came close up along her leeward side.

Smiling brown faces gazed up, and an anxious white one; a young woman threw a sheaf of some strong-smelling green herb on deck; lines were pa.s.sed and the white man came up the side, accompanied by an islander.

'Captain Aubrey, sir, I believe?' said the white man, advancing and taking off his hat. 'My name is Wainwright, master of the Daisy whaler, and this is Pakeea, the under-chief of Tiaro. He brings you a present of fish, fruit and vegetables.'

'How very kind of him,' said Jack, smiling at Pakeea, a tall stout beautifully tattooed young man shining with oil, who smiled back in the friendliest manner. 'Please thank him heartily for me. Nothing could have been more welcome.' And having named his officers and asked Pullings to have the presents brought aboard, Jack went on, 'Will you step into the cabin?'

In the cabin Killick handed some little round farinaceous objects fresh from the galley, spread with marmalade, and madeira; and after a few insignificant remarks Jack opened a drawer, showed Wainwright a bunch of red feathers, asking in an aside, 'Are they adequate?"

'Oh Lord yes,' said Wainwright.

'Oh Lord yes,' said Pakeea.

Jack handed them to him, together with a piece of scarlet cloth and a small magnifying gla.s.s. Pakeea raised the gifts to his head with a face full of pleasure, and made quite a long speech in Polynesian.

'I am afraid I do not understand you, sir,' said Jack, having listened attentively.

'Pakeea says he hopes you will come ash.o.r.e. He does not speak English, but he can echo the last words he hears with wonderful accuracy.'

'Please tell him I should be very happy to come ash.o.r.e, to water and trade for hogs, coconuts and yams, and to walk about this beautiful island.'

Wainwright translated this and some further civilities and then he said 'For my own part I am delighted that you will be coming. I have some very grave information for you; and aside from that my own ship is in a sad way for want of the carpenter and his mate and the cooper. As soon as I saw the Surprise heave up I said to Canning "My G.o.d, we are saved." '

'How did you know she was the Surprise^'

'Bless you, sir, there is no mistaking that towering mainmast, and in any case we have sailed in company many a time in the Channel and the West Indies. I often came aboard you in the Mediterranean with messages from the flag. I served my time as midshipman and master's mate and pa.s.sed for lieutenant in ninety-eight; but they never would give me a commission, so in the end I bore up for the merchant service.'

'Like many another first-rate officer,' said Jack, shaking his hand.

'You are very good, sir,' said Wainwright. 'But since you are coming in, perhaps I may stay aboard, give you my important news and then show you the channel through the reef, while Pakeea takes his people back in the pahi. They are apt to be a nuisance on deck when it comes to the fine-work of threading the channel and dropping anchor.'

During this time the young chief, overcoming his natural gaiety, had sat with the gravity that became his rank, secretly counting his feathers and looking at them and the cloth through the magnifying gla.s.s, whose use he had grasped at once. On deck however there was no gravity at all, except on the part of Sarah and Emily. Once the fish, the yams, sugar-cane, bananas and breadfruit had been brought aboard, most of the islanders followed them, leaving only a few to fend off. All the Surprises who had a word of Polynesian (and at least a score of them were moderately fluent) entered into conversation; and those who had not did the same, contenting themselves with incorrect English spoken loud: 'Me like um banana. Good. Good." There were three young Friendly women, who had also had time to oil themselves afresh, which gave their bare torsos a charming gleam, and to ornament their persons with necklaces of flowers and shark's teeth; but the foremast jacks were shy of accosting them with the officers present, and in any case they seemed strongly aware of rank. One spoke only to Pullings, in his fine blue coat; one to Oakes and Clarissa; and one attached herself to Stephen, sitting by him on the carriage of a gun and entertaining him with a cheerful, very voluble account of some recent occurrence, often laughing as she did so and patting him on the knee. From the very frequent repet.i.tion of certain phrases Stephen was convinced that she was recounting a conversation - 'So I said to him . . . and he said to me ... so then I replied . . . Oh, says he ..." Her bubbling high spirits were agreeable for a while, but presently he led her, still talking, to the forecastle, where the little girls (and not so very little either, now that they had begun to shoot up) were watching the scene with displeasure. Jemmy Ducks had told them they were never to say 'black boogers' again, as it was not genteel; but these were the words they muttered from time to time. Stephen said they were to curtsy, and that if the young lady wished to touch noses they were to suffer it. This the young woman did as the most natural thing in the world, very gently, bending a little; and then she addressed them in Polynesian. Finding they did not understand she laughed heartily, gave Emily one of her necklaces and Sarah a mother-of-pearl pendant, and continued her flow of speech, pointing now at the island, now at the masthead, and laughing very often.

Presently Jack, Wainwright and Pakeea came on deck and the young chief called out with surprising authority. All the islanders began to leave the ship and Parsons, one of the South Seas speakers, said privately to Stephen, 'By your leave, sir: that young female prigged your wipe while you was a-looking at the mast. Shall I tell her to give it back?"

'Did she indeed, Parsons?' cried Stephen, clapping his hand to his pocket in a very simple way. 'Well, never mind. It was an old torn rag of a thing, and I do not grudge it to so pretty a creature.' 'But,' he added inwardly, 'she also took my little lancet, which I rather regret.'

The pahi shoved off, filled and ran smoothly for the sh.o.r.e at an extraordinary pace, making almost no wake and, because of its wide-s.p.a.ced double hull, scarcely heeling at all. In addition to the modest voluntary presents, it carried five handkerchiefs, one pocket lancet, two gla.s.s bottles (one with a coloured stopper), and one tobacco-box, five iron and two wooden belaying-pins: yet what the islanders had brought so very far outweighed what they had taken that it was impossible for any except the man deprived of his tobacco to feel righteous or indignant.

'Now, sir,' said Wainwright, they having returned to the cabin, 'I must tell you that there is an English ship and several English seamen detained in the island of Moahu, which lies south of . . .'

'I know its position,' said Jack. 'But I have no accurate chart.'

'Perhaps I had better start by saying that my owners have six ships employed as whalers or as fur-traders to Nootka Sound and the northwards, and these ships often appoint to meet - and others do the same, it being so convenient - at Moahu to refresh and exchange news or owners' instructions before going on either to Canton for the Nootka ships or down into the Southern Ocean for the rest of their whaling cruise, right down, sometimes by way of Sydney Cove, to Van Diemen's Land or beyond. And if the fur-traders have not done well in their first season, they lie there and sail back early in the next, before the Americans come round the Horn. Most of the year, when the north-east trades are blowing, we put into Eeahu; but the rest of the time we lie at Pabay, in the north.'

'Will you draw me a rough map?' asked Jack, pa.s.sing pencil and paper.

'It is easy enough where Moahu is concerned,' said Wainwright, and he drew a large figure of eight with a broad waist. 'North to south is about twenty miles. The smaller lobe at the top, with the harbour of Pabay in the north-east, is Kalahua's territory. The division between the two rounds is very rough mountain country with forest going far down each side. The southern lobe belongs to Puolani. Rightly speaking she is queen of the whole island, but some generations ago the chiefs in the north rebelled, and now Kalahua, who has knocked all the other northern chiefs on the head, says he is the rightful king of all Moahu, Puolani having eaten pork, which is taboo to women. Everyone says that is nonsense. She certainly eats the usual pieces of enemy chiefs killed in battle, according to custom, but she is a very pious woman, and would never touch pork. So you see, sir, there is war between north and south. Our owners have told us to keep out of it, because we have to use the two harbours, Pabay in the north-east, a good harbour in a deep inlet with a stream at its head when the wet south winds are blowing, and Eeahu in the south, in Puolani's country, when the trades make it difficult to get out of Pabay. For my own part I should have backed Puolani, who has always been kind to us and true to her word, and who is after all only a poor weak woman, whereas Kalahua is an ugly scrub, not to be trusted. The forces used to be about equal, and both sides treated us civilly; but when I came into Pabay this last time, to join our ships Truelove, William Hardy, and Heartsease, John Trumper, I found everything was changed. Kalahua had a parcel of Europeans, some with muskets, and he had fallen out with our two skippers. He wanted to what he called borrow their guns, but he did not ask right out and make a point of it until Hardy was in a very awkward position, having heaved down his ship to come at a leak. They were still temporizing when I came in, but by then Kalahua had seized a score of their men on one pretext or another - theft; fornication, by G.o.d; touching taboo fruits or trees - and when I went to see him he declared the ships should have no water, no supplies, and the men should not be released until his demands were satisfied. There was something odd and false and disagreeably confident about him, and he kept on putting off our meetings - he was gone up the country, he was sleeping, he was out of sorts.

'It was when he was really gone up into the mountains with his Europeans that a fourth ship of ours, the Cowslip, Michael McPhee, appeared in the offing. I signalled to her not to cross the bar, and sent off one of our Kanaka hands with a message, telling McPhee to water at Eeahu, Puolani's harbour, if necessary, and then to pelt down to Sydney Cove like smoke and oak.u.m and tell them how we were being used.

'Before Kalahua returned a couple of big pahis came in, one of them belonging to an old friend of mine, a very good friend, an Oahu chief, last from Molokai in the Sandwich Islands, and I learnt why Kalahua was so confident. He was expecting the Franklin, a heavy privateer carrying twenty-two nine-pounders, sailing under the American flag but manned by Frenchmen from Canada and Louisiana: and to be sure, though Kalahua had kept his white men from us, I had seen something of them and they certainly spoke French among themselves or when they saw me a d.a.m.ned odd sort of English. And I heard that the French owner, who had been in Hawaii picking up hands, was a man who could not keep quiet, who had to be talking, and he had told a handsome Marquesas girl, half French herself, that he did not value Kalahua a pinch of snuff, an odious fellow, false through and through, and that as soon as the two sides, north and south, had weakened one another enough, Kalahua should be knocked on the head, Puolani's war-canoes (her chief strength) should be destroyed with a couple of broadsides and that Moahu, at the wish of its people and of those surviving chiefs who knew what was good for them, should be declared a French possession. The natives would be taught to cry Vive I'Empereur, which was fair enough, since it was the French government that had put up the money for the ship. But once the war was over there would be quite a different regime, with equality for everyone, all property held in common, justice, peace and plenty - everything settled by discussion.'

'That puts a different face on the matter,' said Jack, thinking of Stephen with great relief.

'Yes, sir. So I posted a sentinel to watch for the Franklin. There was nothing to be done about the Truelove. She was hove down right in the village and in any case the tide would not serve: but Trumper of the Heartsease and I prepared our ships as well as we could, though we only had what you expect in merchantmen. And that same evening the sentinel came hallooing down - there was a ship in with the land, making for the harbour under an easy sail. We had been delayed so long the trades were blowing again: the wind was north-easterly, but by the grace of G.o.d there was just enough north in it to let us sc.r.a.pe past the south headland close-hauled. Heartease went first, and she got off with no more than a hole or two in her topsails, but the Franklin cracked on to make all sneer again, throwing a bow-wave as wide as her fore-course and ranging up fast - the Daisy was never built for speed - and he gave us a broadside that killed our carpenter and his mate and shattered the boats on the boom. As cruel a broadside as ever I saw, and I thought if this goes on I shall have to strike. But it was only luck: his next went overhead and before he could fire again - d.a.m.ned slow, I may say, by your standards, sir - I had the satisfaction of seeing his fore topmast go by the board. I like to think it was the stern-chaser I had just fired that cut the backstay but it was more likely an absurd overpress of sail. Any gate, he came up into the wind, and he had not the command of his helm to follow me through the dog-leg pa.s.sage in the reef."

The way had been coming off the frigate for some time now, and Wainwright, glancing at the sh.o.r.e, said 'Speaking of channels, sir, perhaps I should show your helmsman just how this one lies: we are quite near, and it is no good following the pahi - they never can believe we draw so much water.'

On deck Jack found that they had indeed come very close to the reef. There were leadsmen in the chains on either side; Davidge was on the fore topsail yard conning the ship; Pullings had hands at the braces and halliards, with the anchor dangling a-c.o.c.kbill. 'Captain Wainwright will take her in,' said Jack to Pullings, and Wainwright, guiding himself by familiar landmarks, set about the awkward turns with such obvious competence that all hands relaxed.

All hands, that is to say, except the medical men and Clarissa Oakes: for her part she had never supposed that there was any danger, and her whole being was taken up with the sh.o.r.e, its brilliant coral strand, its coconut-palms leaning in every direction, their fronds streaming with infinite grace, the village of wide-spread little houses among irregular fields and gardens, a path leading into the green forest. Maturin's and Martin's eyes and telescopes, on the other hand, were fixed upon the whaler, lying close in-sh.o.r.e, leaning heavily; she had a stage over her side.

'I believe it is an ancient murrelet," said Stephen. 'I saw it on the water.'

'How can you speak so, Maturin," said Martin. 'An ancient murrelet in these lat.i.tudes?'

'It is certainly an auk,' said Stephen, following its rapid whirring flight. 'And I am persuaded it is an ancient murrelet.'

'See, see,' cried Martin. 'It circles the ship. It lands in the foretop!'

The frigate had pa.s.sed through the channel and she was gliding gently towards the whaler. Wainwright brought her head to the wind, called 'Let go,' the anchor splashed into the sea - that welcome, welcome sound - and the Surprise drifted on with the making tide, paying out a good scope of cable, and bringing up in a comfortable five fathom water so close to the whaler that the bird could clearly be seen, watching them with every appearance of curiosity.

'If you will come across and dine with me, sir,' said Wainwright, 'I will finish my account. I am so sorry I cannot invite your officers, but the Daisy's cabin is crammed with the more valuable bales from the Truelove, and there is barely room for even two to sit down.'

'I should be very happy," said Jack, 'but first may I beg you to ask Pakeea to tell his people they must not come aboard until he gives the word? Mr Davidge, my gig. Captain Pullings, I am going aboard the whaler: there is to be no trading for curiosities until the ship has been victualled.'