The Nutmeg of Consolation

  'That would account for the devastation in the Captain's pantry, never attacked before.'

  'It would also account for this whole change in behaviour that we have observed: their mildness, their confident wandering about the ship and contemplating the passers-by—this when they had had their leaves. And their eagerness to get more. They stood about me as I gazed at the ruins of my store—my only indulgence, Martin—gibbering, barely able to contain themselves.'

  'I am afraid it must be a sad vexation to have had your whole supply destroyed,' said Martin. 'But I hope it is not as serious as the loss of tobacco to a smoker.'

  'Oh no: it does not cause a vehement addiction, as tobacco sometimes does; though curiously enough some of its effects are not unlike; and it quite does away with the need to smoke. I still enjoy my occasional cigar after a good dinner; but if I have had my little ball of lime-sprinkled leaves in the morning I am perfectly content without it.'

  The next day both Emily and Sarah were bitten by their tame rats. They wept; and they wept still more when Stephen cauterized the wounds. In the afternoon the rats disappeared from those parts of the ship where they had caused most astonishment, but they could be heard fighting on the cable-tier and in the hold. Yet there were few people to hear the furious scuffling fore and aft, the death-shriek and the screams of rage, for in this flat calm turtles, green turtles, had been seen basking on the surface, and the Surprise's boats, lowered down with the greatest caution and paddled rather than pulled, caught four, all female and all quite stout, none less than a hundred-weight. There was also the killing of the last Solomon pig, as Jack Aubrey insisted upon giving Martin an edible dinner to wipe out the disgrace of supper: a high ceremony for all those brought up with pigs about the house, which was the case with most of the Surprises, and one followed by black puddings and many another delight.

  On the evening after this first dinner Stephen retired to his alternative lower cabin, where he could write in unobserved solitude; thrust balls of wax into his ears so that he could do so in something like silence, trimmed his green-shaded lamp, poised his cigar on a pewter dish, and wrote 'It is whimsical enough, my dearest soul, to think that on this, almost the last day of our voyage, all hands should have eaten like aldermen; yet such is the case, and such will be the case tomorrow, when the gun-room invites Jack and the two midshipmen to what will probably be the last dinner before we enter Sydney Cove, for the wind has revived and through my wax I hear the measured impact of the swell against the frigate's bow. Fresh pork and green turtle! They are good in themselves and after our very short commons they were of course better by far. I ate voraciously and now I am smoking like a voluptuous Turk; which brings me to the curious incident of the other day—I went below to fill the empty bedside box of coca-leaves and found that rats had eaten all my store. It had all gone, even to the oiled-silk outer cases. For some time the behaviour of the ship's rats (a numerous crew) had excited comment, and it is now clear to me that they had become slaves to the coca. Now that they have eaten it all, now that they are deprived of it, all their mildness, lack of fear and what might even be called their complaisance is gone. They are rats and worse than rats: they fight, they kill one another, and were I to unblock my ears I should hear their harsh strident screams. So far I have killed no one, nor have I desired to do so; but in other ways I too feel my lack: I eat exorbitantly, my eyes starting from my head (whereas coca imposes moderation); I smoke and relish it extremely (whereas coca does away with tobacco); sleep is near to closing my stupid eyes (whereas coca keeps one contentedly awake until the middle watch). I hope we shall see Sydney the day after tomorrow, primo, secundo, tertio and so to infinity because in spite of the dismal words "no news from home" I may hear from you, hear from you by some earlier ship. And then, not to be mentioned on the same page, because some apothecary or medical man may renew my stock as it was renewed in Stockholm. I should be sorry to be reduced to the state of the two animals I see but do not hear in the corner by my stool—do not hear, so that their frenzied, tight-locked battle has a horror of its own—yet man (or at all events this particular man) is so weak that if an innocent leaf can protect him even a little then hey for the innocent leaf.'

  The gun-room's feast for the Captain was if anything more copious than that of the day before: it was less gorgeous, seeing that in the Surprise's present unlisted state as 'HM's hired vessel' the gun-room did not rise above pewter except for its forks and spoons, but the gun-room cook, by means known to himself alone, had conserved the makings of a superb suet pudding of the kind called boiled baby in the service, known to be Jack Aubrey's favourite form of food, and it came in on a scrubbed scuttle-cover to the sound of cheering. Another difference between the old HMS Surprise and HM Hired Vessel Surprise was that there were no lines of servants, one behind each officer's chair. For one thing she carried no Marines or boys, the main source of supply, and for another it would have been quite out of tune with her present ship's company's state of mind. There was not so much glory; the sequence of dishes was slower; but the conversation was far less restrained, and when even Killick and the gun-room steward retired Jack, a fine purple with satiety, gazed round the table smiling at his hosts and said 'I do not know whether any of you gentlemen have touched at Sydney before?'

  No, they said, they had not.

  'The Doctor and I were there some years ago, when I had the Leopard. It was at that uneasy time when the soldiers and Governor Bligh had been at cross purposes, so we did no more than take in what trifling stores the military men would let us have and sailed on. But I was ashore long enough to get a general impression, and a very nasty general impression it was. The place was run by soldiers, and although some time later those who had deposed the Governor were put to stand in the corner for a while, I hear that things are much the same, so I will tell you what I found and what I dare say you will still find when you go ashore. I say nothing about Admiral Bligh and his disagreements with the army; but I will say that quite apart from those quarrels I never met a soldier that did not dislike a sailor. I found them an overdressed, underbred, inhospitable, quarrelsome set of men. I know the army is not very particular about the people who buy a commission in new-raised, out-of-the-way regiments, but even so I was astonished. They had pretty well monopolized trade, forming a ring that did away with all competition; they had taken up all the good land, which they farmed with free convict-labour; they were exploiting the place for all they were worth. But infinitely worse than all that, worse than their corrupt selling to Government at starvation prices, was their treatment of the wretched prisoners. I have been aboard more than one hell-afloat, and they make a man's heart sick, but I have never seen anything to touch the cruelty in New South Wales. Floggings of five hundred lashes, five hundred lashes, were commonplace, and even in the short time I was there two men were whipped to death. I tell you this because these fellows know damned well that people fresh to the place are shocked and look upon them as blackguards; they are very touchy about it, very apt to take offence, and you may easily find yourself called out for a trifling observation. So it seems to me that distant civility is the thing: official invitations, no more. There is no one here who could possibly be accused of want of conduct, but a quarrel with a blackguard is like a court-case with a pauper: the whole thing is a toss-up—there is no justice in either—and while you have nothing to win, he has nothing to lose.'

  'Did you say a court-case, sir?' asked West.

  'Yes, I did,' said Jack. 'What I really meant was that a blackguard can point a pistol as well as a decent man, and that it is much better to avoid the possibility of such an encounter. There was a jumped-up fellow here called Macarthur who put a bullet in Colonel Paterson's shoulder, though Paterson was all an officer should be and the other was a scoundrel.'

  'I met Macarthur in London,' said Stephen. 'He was there for his court-martial—acquitted, of course—and Southdown Kemsley, with whom he had been in correspondence on sheep, brought him to dinner at th
e Royal Society Club. Loud, positive and overbearing: at first extremely formal, then extremely familiar, full of lewd anecdotes. He wanted to buy some of the King's merinos, and he proposed calling on Sir Joseph Banks, who supervised the flock; but Sir Joseph, who was in close touch with the colony, had had such reports of his undesirability that he declined receiving him. His regiment was universally known as the Rum Corps, because rum was its first basis of trade, wealth, power, influence and corruption. I believe that there are changes now that Governor Macquarie has come out with the Seventy-Third regiment, but the old Rum Corps officers are still here, in the administration or sitting on great stretches of good land granted to themselves by themselves and more or less running the country, alas.'

  The dinner did not end on this solemn note; indeed it ended in very cheerful song. But the next day's breakfast was a gloomy affair, although the coast of New South Wales was clear all along the western horizon and the pilot was already aboard. There was a most unaccustomed silence on either side of the coffee-pot, and Jack for one looked yellow, puffy, liverish; he had not taken his morning swim and his eyes, usually bright blue, were now dull, oyster-like, with discoloured bags below them. His breath was foul.

  'The Doctor was not drunk too, was he?' asked Bonden in the cuddy where Killick was grinding beans for a second pot.

  'Drunk, no,' said Killick. 'I wish he had been. It would make his crabbedness more natural. I don't know what has come over him, such a mild-spoken cove.'

  'He slapped Sarah and Emily till they howled again; and he checked Joe Plaice something cruel for walking backwards into him on the forecastle: "Can't you see where you are a-coming to, God damn your eyes and limbs, you fat-arsed bugger of a longshoreman?" Or words to that effect.'

  'I tell you what it is, Stephen,' said Jack after a prolonged silence. 'I do not think the gun-room's turtle was quite wholesome.'

  'Nonsense,' said Stephen. 'Never was such a healthy, clean-run reptile. The trouble is, you ate too much, as you did the day before, and as you do habitually whenever it is there to eat. I have told you again and again that you are digging your grave with your teeth. You are at present suffering from a plethory, a common plethory. I can deal with the symptoms of this plethory; but the self-indulgence that lies behind them is beyond my reach.'

  'Pray do deal with them, Stephen,' said Jack. 'We shall drop anchor this afternoon unless the breeze fails us. The Governor is sure to ask us to dinner tomorrow, and I could not face a laid table as I feel now.'

  'You will have to take physic, of course; and it will confine you to the seat of ease for most of the day and perhaps part of the night. You obese subjects are often slow-working, where the colon is concerned.'

  'I shall take whatever you order,' said Jack. 'To clean and refit a ship properly and without loss of time, you have to be tolerably well with the authorities, and to be tolerably well with the authorities you have to eat their food hearty and drink up their wine as though you enjoyed it. At present the thought of anything but bare biscuit'—holding up a piece—'and thin black coffee makes my gorge rise.'

  'I shall fetch what is required,' said Stephen, returning some minutes later with a pill-box, a bottle and a measuring-glass. 'Swallow this,' he said, passing a pill, 'and wash it down with that,' passing the half-filled glass.

  'Are you sure it is enough?' asked Jack. 'I am not one of your light-weights, you know, not one of your borrel shrimps; and it is a very small pill.'

  'Rest easy while you may,' said Stephen. 'You may be the biggest born of earth, but black draught and blue pill will search your entrails and stir your torpid liver; it will sort you out finely, so it will.' He put the cork back into the bottle with a thump and walked off, reflecting upon exasperation, an emotion aroused by some persons and some situations in an eminent degree.

  Having edged three dead rats out of the sick-berth he did some work on his records: then he rolled a little paper cigar and climbed to the quarterdeck to smoke it. There had been some candid remarks about tobacco below, and he was obliged to admit that the cold stale smell of several dead cigars that seeped from his lower cabin into the gun-room did make it more like a low pot-house at dawn than was altogether agreeable.

  Martin had already been on deck for some time, watching the magnificent harbour opening before them. 'Here is Sydney Cove at last,' he said, with a somewhat irritating enthusiasm.

  'It grieves me to contradict you,' said Stephen, 'but this is Port Jackson. Sydney Cove is only a little small bay, about five miles down on the left.'

  'Good Heavens! Do you tell me that they are the same? I had no idea.'

  'Sure, I have not mentioned it above a hundred times.'

  'So this is the home of the Port Jackson shark,' cried Martin, looking eagerly over the side.

  'Ha, ha,' said Stephen, to whom the thought had occurred many and many a time before, but not today. 'Let us see if we can fish one up.' He picked his way through a party of men on their knees, improving the look of the quarterdeck seams, and reached for the mizzentopsail halliards, to which the shark-hooks and their chains were made fast. But before he could seize them Tom Pullings was there. 'No, sir,' he said very firmly. 'Not today, if you please. There can be no shark-fishing today. We have been preddying the decks ever since two bells in the morning watch. Surely, sir, you would not want Surprise to look paltry in Sydney Cove?'

  Stephen might have advanced that it was only a small inoffensive shark, not above four feet long, that it had a unique arrangement of flat grinding teeth of the first interest, and that the inconvenience would be trifling; but Tom Pullings' immovable gravity, the immovable gravity of all the Surprises on deck, who had stopped work to look at him, and even of the pilot, a man-of-war's man himself, checked the words in his throat.

  'We will fish up a couple for you the day after tomorrow,' said Pullings.

  'Half a dozen,' said the bosun.

  'Oh if you please, sir,' cried Jemmy Ducks, coming aft at a run, 'Sarah has swallowed a pin.'

  The medical men had more trouble, spent more time with this one pin than with the results of many a brisk action, with splinter-wounds, fractures and even the minor amputations; and when at last it was recovered and the exhausted, emptied child had been put to bed they found they had missed the entire approach to Sydney, the shores and the stratified cliffs of Port Jackson and the various branches of the harbour, of which Martin had heard great things. They had also missed the boarding of the ship by an officer from the shore and their dinner itself; but they cared little for either, and Stephen, observing that Captain Aubrey would certainly be indisposed by now, remained below, eating scraps with Martin. He then found himself overcome with sleep, in spite of the gun-room steward's idea of coffee, and retired to his cabin.

  It was in this same cabin that he sat next day, in white breeches, silk stockings, gleaming buckled shoes, a newly-shaved face and a newly-clipped poll: his best uniform coat and his newly-curled, newly-powdered wig hung close at hand, not to be touched until the barge was lowered down.

  To try his pen, a new-cut quill, he wrote 'Exasperation' six times and then returned to his letter: 'No news, of course: Jack sent as soon as we were moored, but there was no news from home. Official papers, by way of India, yes; but all that matters is still between here and the Cape, somewhere in the southern ocean. I comfort myself by reflecting that it may come while we are still here. And I need comfort. I have told you many times I am sure that the common seaman believes that more is better and has to be watched to prevent him swallowing whole vials of physic. In this Jack is as common as any of them, and more dangerous to himself in that he has the habit of command. Late yesterday he formed the opinion that my black draught and blue pill were not working briskly enough, and while I was asleep he practised upon Martin and by means that do him no credit he obtained a second dose: now of course he cannot stir from the quarter-gallery. He is quite incapable of accepting the invitation to Government House this afternoon, and Tom Pullings and I are to go wit
hout him. It is not a dinner I look forward to with any pleasure. This morning I was ashore, looking in vain for an apothecary, merchant or medical man who might have the leaves of coca, and I found the miserable place much as I left it—squalid, dirty, formless, with ramshackle wooden huts placed without regard to anything but temporary convenience twenty years ago, dust, apathetic ragged convicts, all filthy, some in chains—the sound of chains everywhere. And turning into an unpaved, uneven kind of a square I came full upon those vile triangles and a flogging in progress, the man hanging from the apex. Flogging I have seen only too often in the Navy, but rarely more than a dozen lashes, and those laid on with a relative decency: a bystander told me that this man had already received one hundred and eighty-five out of his two hundred; yet still the burly executioner stepped well back and made a double skip each time to bring his whip down with the greater force, taking off flesh at every blow. The ground was soaked with fresh blood, and there was a red darkness at the foot of the other triangles. To my astonishment the man was able to stand when he was untied: his face showed not so much suffering as utter despair. His friends led him away, and as he went the blood welled from his shoes at every step.

  'A little farther on I came to some more of these gaunt barracks and to a street being laid out by a chain-gang, and the beginning of what the men told me was to be a hospital, built at the orders of the new governor, Colonel Macquarie: I shall be sorry not to see him, but he is away in . . .'