The Nutmeg of Consolation

  'Among the common sailors? Oh Captain Aubrey, how barbarous! They are gentlemen's sons.'

  'So was I, ma'am, when I was turned before the mast. It was rough and hard and in the graveyard watch when no one could see me I wept like a girl. But it did me a power of good: and I do assure you, ma'am, that upon the whole your common sailor is a very decent sort of man. My messmates on the lower deck were as kind as could be, except for one. Gross of course, on occasion; but I have known midshipmen's berths, aye and wardrooms, grosser by far.'

  'It would I am sure be indiscreet to ask why you were turned before the mast,' said the Dutch lady most at home in English.

  'Well, ma'am,' said Jack with an engaging leer, 'it was partly because of my devotion to the sex, but even more because I stole the captain's tripe.'

  'Sex?' cried the Dutch ladies. 'Tripe?' They whispered among themselves, blushed, looked very grave, and fell silent.

  In the silence Jack said to Mrs Raffles, 'To return to your unfortunate young men. They seem to me to have the makings of seamen, but I mean to try them out on the lower deck for a few weeks. If my impression is right, I shall bring them aft, which will fall in well with my notion of promoting a valuable young foremast-jack. He would come aft with them, feeling neither lost nor a stranger in the midshipmen's berth. I have seen to it that they are in the same watch; and they are messmates.'

  The Nutmeg of Consolation received her Captain without ceremony, instantly hoisted in his gig, slipped her moorings, and as her little band (a tromba marina, two fiddles, an oboe, two Jew's harps and of course the drum) played Loath to Depart she made her way out through the shipping with the last of the tide and a fair but very faint breeze. Although the Nutmegs had been kept very, very busy they had still found time to make friends ashore, and a little group of young women, Javanese, Sumatran, Maduran, Dutch and mingled, waved until handkerchiefs could no longer be seen and the ship was little more than a whiteness in the haze towards Cape Krawang.

  She was still there on Friday; Saturday and Sunday, for the monsoon, which had been blowing so true and steady all the time they were in Batavia, now gave way to breezes so contrary she was never able to weather that wretched headland. Jack tried everything a sailor could try: anchoring with three cables end to end to stem the flood and take advantage of the ebb; going to sea in search of a favourable wind among the Thousand Islands; beating up tack upon tack, with the Nutmeg running as fast through the sea as the utmost attention and consummate seamanship could drive her, but with no gain, because the entire body of water upon which she skimmed with such breathless care was moving westwards at an equal or even greater pace. Sometimes, when it fell calm, he tried sweeping, for the Nutmeg, though much bigger than most vessels that resorted to these massive great oars, was not too proud to win a mile or two towards the cape at the cost of sore and somewhat ignominious labour. And sometimes he towed, with all the ship's boats pulling their hearts out ahead. But most of the time the air was in motion of some kind and he sailed: this gained him no casting, but he did learn a great deal about his ship. She was neither brisk nor lively with the wind much abaft the beam, but on a bowline she was as fast and weatherly as a man could desire, almost as fast and weatherly as the Surprise, and without her tendency to gripe and steer wild if an expert hand were not at the wheel. During the frequent and oh so unwelcome calms he and the master changed her trim until they hit upon the improbable lay that suited her best—the half-strake by the stern they had begun with—and then the Nutmeg steered herself.

  Yet even with a perfect trim she could not fly in the face of nature and sail against both wind and tide, and at breakfast on Sunday Jack said, 'I have very rarely acted on principle, and on the few occasions when I have done so, it has always ended unhappy. There was a girl that said "Upon your word of honour now, Mr Aubrey, do you think Caroline handsomer than me?" and on the principle that honour was sacred I said well yes, perhaps, a little, which angered her amazingly and quite broke off our commerce, do you see. And now, out of mere principle again, I stayed until Thursday for the Governor's dinner—I am not blaming you, Stephen, not for a moment: though it is true that you can never be brought to understand that time and tide wait for no man—but when I think of all that double-reef topsail south-wester wasted, a wind that might have carried us as far as 112°East, why then I say be damned to principle.'

  'Is there any more marmalade?' asked Stephen.

  Jack passed it and went on, 'But religion is another thing, if you understand me. I mean to rig church this morning, and I wonder whether it would be improper to pray for a fair wind.'

  'It is certainly allowable to pray for rain, and I know that it is quite often done. But as to wind . . . might not that have a most offensive resemblance to your present heathen practices? Might it not look like a mere reinforcement of your scratching backstays and whistling till you are black in the face? Or even, God forbid, to Popery? Martin would tell us the Anglican usage. We Papists would of course beg for the intercession of our patron or some perhaps more appropriate saint: I shall certainly do so in my private devotions. Yet even without Martin, I believe you would be safe in forming, if not in uttering, a vehement wish.'

  'How I wish Martin were here: or rather that we were there, east of the Passage. How are they doing? How have they done? Will they be true to their time? Lord, how I wonder.'

  'Who is this Martin they are talking about in the cabin?' asked Killick's new mate, a man-of-war's man from Wapping, left behind with six others from the Thunderer to recover from Batavia fever. He alone had survived; and as he had not only his proper discharge, smart-ticket and a commendation from his captain but had also sailed with Jack and Killick at various times in the last twenty years he had been taken on board at once. It was not that he was a particularly well-trained or genteel servant—indeed he was if anything even rougher than Killick—nor that he was an uncommonly expert seaman, being rated able only by courtesy; but he was a cheerful obliging fellow; and above all he was an old shipmate.

  'You ain't heard of Mr Martin?' asked Killick, stopping short in his polishing of a silver plate.

  'No, mate: never a word,' said the mate, whose name was William Grimshaw.

  'Never heard of the Reverend Mr Martin?'

  'Not even of the Reverend Mr Martin.'

  'Which he had only one eye,' said Killick; and then, reflecting, 'No. Of course it was after your time. He was chaplain of Surprise in the South Sea, being a great friend of the Doctor's. They went collecting wild beasts and butterflies on the Spanish Main—serpents, shrunken heads, dried babies—curiosities, you might say—which they put up in spirits of wine.'

  'I saw a lamb with five legs, once,' said William Grimshaw.

  'Then when the Captain had his misfortune and took to privateering, Reverend Martin came along too, having had a misfortune likewise. Something to do with his bishop's wife, they said.'

  'Bishops don't have wives, mate,' said Grimshaw.

  'Well, his miss, his sweetheart, then. But he came along as surgeon's mate, not as parson, no parsons being wanted in a letter of marque.'

  'Nor in a man-of-war neither.'

  'And there he is as surgeon of Surprise at this wery moment, cutting up his shipmates—a fearless hand with a knife by now, having stuffed so many crocodiles and baboons and the like—-and waiting for us, God willing, off of some islands beyond this Passage, a quiet, good-natured gent, not too proud to write a letter for a man or a petition for the ship's company: and your petitioners will always pray. They went west about and we went east about, to meet on the far side of the world, do you see; and the skipper wishes the Reverend was here this minute to ask whether it is lawful to pray for a wind, or would it be Popery.'

  'Poor unfortunate buggers,' said Grimshaw, dismissing the questions of prayer.

  'How do you make that out?' asked Killick, narrowing his eyes.

  'Because why, if you sail steady westwards and you come to the line where the date changes, say if you cross it o
f a Monday, why, tomorrow is Monday too—and you have lost a day's pay.'

  Killick pondered, looking shrewish, discontented, suspicious: then his face lightened and he cried 'But we been sailing steady eastwards, so if we cross it of a Monday, tomorrow is Wednesday and we have Tuesday's pay for nothing, ha, ha, ha! Ain't that right, mate?'

  'Right as dried peas, mate.'

  'God love you, William Grimshaw.'

  This charming news spread round the ship, bringing about an effervescence of cheerfulness that lasted until the next day, so that when church was rigged Jack noticed a lack of the usual placid steady, even bovine attention, and after a few hymns and a psalm he closed his book, made a significant dismissive pause, and said 'And those that see fit may form an humble, earnest wish, though not a presumptuous request, for a fair wind.' He was answered by a surprising volume of sound: the humming and buzzing usual in chapels (many of the West Country hands were Nonconformists), a general 'Aye', something not unlike 'Hear him'—a confused surge of agreement, but so loud that he was displeased.

  So loud that many of the Nutmeg's people were even more displeased, and they freely blamed their shipmates' want of discretion for the truly shocking weather she had to endure for a period that seemed to go on and on, past all reason, with both watches on deck much of the night and the warm, phosphorescent, tumultuous seas swirling deep in the waist of the ship and life-lines stretched fore and aft.

  Jack had learnt the Nutmeg's ways in light airs, calms and contrary breezes; now he found how she behaved in squalls, fresh gales, stiff gales, hard gales and gales so strong that she either scudded under a close-reefed foresail, if she had sea-room, her people keeping the most zealous watch for uncharted rocks; or if she had not, as she had not among the frightful reefs and scattered islands of the Macassar Strait, she lay to, doing so as neat and dry as a duck, under her main staysail. Not only did she lie to admirably, but even in a very strong blow she retained her weatherly virtues, coming up to within six points of the wind or even slightly more and making very little leeway; and this as she quite often had to do, when an unexpected island loomed up and they put the helm hard over to claw off the unwelcome shore.

  It is true that apart from three or four unnatural squalls that took her aback off Celebes, the gales were all nominally favourable, in that they came roaring over the white-crested sea from the south or south-west; and it was true that all the Nutmegs had known even stronger winds and far higher seas, with the added disadvantage of frostbitten hands, ice-covered decks and rigging, and the danger of cathedral-sized icebergs in the night, when they were sailing the late Diane east through the high southern latitudes; but now they took the foul weather as unfair, being so wholly unexpected—it was unnatural to be obliged to change the entire suit of sails three times, ending up with the coarse, terribly heavy stuff ordinarily used for a rough passage south of the Horn. Furthermore all this toil advanced them little: although winds came from the right quarter, the Nutmeg could scarcely make any use of them in these dangerous, largely unknown waters.

  It was only when they had almost reached the equator again that the monsoon recovered some sense of what was fitting and the ship was able to send up her topgallantmasts once more. This was on a Friday. That day and most of the next were taken up with changing, drying and restoring sails while the Nutmeg glided smoothly over the innocent sea at four knots with lookouts posted on every eminence she possessed, and while the evening peace was shattered by the roar of the carronade exercise and the deeper single note of the chasers.

  During the earlier calms all hands had had a great deal of practice with the neat little weapons, a mere seventeen hundredweight apiece, and their crews had even come to love them Jack could say with perfect truth, 'A good exercise, Mr Fielding' Adding, 'But it would have been even better with more midshipmen. We need at least two more forward and another on the quarterdeck.'

  'I quite agree, sir,' said Fielding; and then seeing that Captain Aubrey did not intend to be more specific he asked, 'Do you mean to rig church tomorrow, sir?'

  'I think not,' said Jack. 'It may be that things are best left to themselves, so let us content ourselves with divisions and the Articles for this bout. At least until we are in open water. And I do not think we will beat to quarters either. The hands could do with something of a rest.' Then after a pause, 'Let us take a glass below as soon as the cabin exists again.'

  The cabin bulkheads, the cabin furniture, the Captain's fiddle, the miniature of Sophie and everything that could interfere with the action of the guns—with the clean sweep fore and aft that ships under Jack Aubrey's command adopted almost every evening of their lives—had been struck down below at the first beat of quarters. Now they were being restored with extraordinary speed by the young carpenter and his crew—practised hands indeed—and within five minutes there was a Christian room again, with sherry and biscuits set out on a tray.

  Jack said 'I think of promoting Conway, Oakes and Miller. Have you any observations?'

  'Conway has always been an outstanding young fellow, of course,' said Fielding. 'And Oakes and Miller behaved well in the recent heavy weather.'

  'So I noticed. I know very well they are far from perfect, but we do need reefers. Can you suggest any other foremast hands that would do better?'

  'No, sir,' said Fielding after some consideration. 'Honestly speaking, I cannot.'

  The naval idea of rest might have dismayed many a landsman. Hammocks were piped up half an hour earlier than usual and during breakfast the bosun roared down the main hatchway, 'D'ye hear there, fore and aft? Clean for muster at five bells: duck frocks and white trousers,' while his mates farther forward cried 'D'ye here, there? Clean shirt and shave for muster at five bells,' calls almost as familiar in a man-of-war as a cock-crow in a farmyard.

  From the end of breakfast the ship was in a state of strong, directed and habitual activity: all hands, apart from the few still-beardless boys, shaved, using either their own razors or submitting to the Nutmeg's barber, while all those with pigtails sought out their tie-mates for a mutual combing and replaiting. There was a great deal of dry holy-stoning of the deck, a great deal of washing hands and faces in basins by the scuttle-butt, and the spotless frocks and trousers, washed last Thursday in a close-reefed topsail gale, made their appearance, often adorned with ribbons along the seams, together with broad-brimmed sennit hats with the ship's name already embroidered on their bands. At the same time the Marines polished, pipeclayed and brushed what they had not polished, pipeclayed and brushed on Saturday evening; and of course all bags were brought up and arranged in pyramids on the booms. Those officers who could had waited until the last moment before changing into their best uniforms, yet even so they were coming to a slow boil before Richardson said to Bennett, the mate of the watch, 'Beat to divisions,' and Bennett, turning to the drummer, said 'Beat to divisions.' At the first stroke of the generale the Marines filed aft, right aft, clump clump, and to the sound of martial cries they formed in ranks across the ship with Welby at their head, attended by his non-commissioned officers and the drummer, while the seamen ran to their appointed stations, in single rows along the rest of the quarterdeck, the gangways and the forecastle, their officers and midshipmen calling out 'Toe the line, there. Oh you wicked lubbers, toe the line.' When they had been reduced to some sort of order, the officer of each division reported to Fielding that his men were present, properly dressed and clean, sir. Fielding stepped across the deck to Jack, took off his hat and said, 'All the officers have reported, sir.'

  'Very well, Mr Fielding,' said Jack. 'Then we will go round the ship, if you please.'

  This they did, starting as usual with the Marines; then came the afterguard and waisters—one division in the Nutmeg—under Mr Warren and Bennett; the gunners, under Mr White, for want of a quarterdeck officer, and Fleming; and the foretop-men, under Richardson and Reade. These were the youngest, most agile and most highly decorated members of the ship's company; they took a harmless deli
ght in being fine and many were thickly tattooed as well as being ribboned and embroidered fore and aft. Conway was among them, a cheerful young man with bright blue seams to his trousers; so were Oakes and Miller, less cheerful but obviously bearing up quite well—they had even ventured upon a little pink piping round the edges of their frock. They had been growing steadily less cadaverous at each muster; their pimples had diminished. Then came the forecastlemen, older, experienced hands under Seymour; yet even among these men, who in some cases had been at sea for forty years, there was not one who had made the circumnavigation, not one who had foreseen the gained day; and they too retained some of that unusual elation of spirits.

  At each division the officer saluted, the men whipped off their hats, smoothed their hair and stood fairly straight; Jack walked along the line, looking attentively at each man, each well-known face. This was something of a feat when there was a sea running, for there was a strongly-held conviction that since the Nutmeg, though small, was ship-rigged and commanded by a post-captain, she should be considered a frigate, and that the hands should line the gangways regardless of the fact that this left precious little room for a portly captain to pass, still less to inspect, a portly foremast hand.

  Presently this stage was over, and having inspected the spotless galley with its shining coppers Jack and his first lieutenant passed aft along the empty berth-deck, each berth ornamented with pictures, gleaming pots, Javan peacock-feathers, and a candle on the largest chest; they looked at the cable-tiers, the store-rooms, and eventually they came to the sick-berth, where Stephen, Macmillan and a newly-acquired loblolly boy received them, reported on the five obstinate cases of Batavia pox and the one broken collarbone—a sheet-anchor man who was so pleased by his gained day that he undertook to show his mates how to dance the Irish trot poised on the fore-jeer bitts.

  The Captain returned to the quarterdeck and the brilliant sunshine. The Marines carried arms with a fine clash and stamp, all officers saluted, all the seamen's hats came off. 'Very well, Mr Fielding,' he said. 'We will content ourselves with the Articles, and then contemplate dinner.'