Clarissa Oakes (19 page)

   '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 butterfly-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 unperceived; 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 passion, for his prize-taking was his whole way of life, his sole
raison d'être
. The Surprises therefore now sailed the ship with the closest possible attention to every shift in the breeze, anticipating 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, ignoble 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 circumstances. 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 attitude 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 pricking 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 damning 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 pass the selvagee first, damn 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 shore, 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 scraper and a clean pair of duck trousers. And pass the word for Captain Pullings. Tom, you know the South Sea islanders as well as I do. They are delightful creatures, but nobody 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 passed 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 glass. 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 ashore. 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 ashore, 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 God, 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 passed 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 glass, 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 repetition 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.