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Chapter Two

They sat at a round table in a bow window that protruded from the back of the inn high above the water, yet so close to it that they had tossed the oyster-shells back into their native element with no more than a flick of the wrist: and from the unloading tartan a hundred and fifty feet below them there arose the mingled scents of Stockholm tar, cordage, sail-cloth and Chian turpentine.

‘Allow me to press you to a trifle of this ragoo’d mutton, sir,’ said Jack.

‘Well, if you insist,’ said Stephen Maturin. ‘It is so very good.’

‘It is one of the things the Crown does well,’ said Jack. ‘Though it is hardly decent in me to say so. Yet I had ordered duck pie, alamode beef and soused hog’s face as well, apart from the kickshaws. No doubt the fellow misunderstood. Heaven knows what is in that dish by you, but it is certainly not hog’s face. I said, visage de porco, many times over; and he nodded like a China mandarin. It is provoking, you know, when one desires them to prepare five dishes, cinco platos, explaining carefully in Spanish, only to find there are but three, and two of those the wrong ones. I am ashamed of having nothing better to offer you, but it was not from want of good will, I do assure you.’

‘I have not eaten so well for many a day, nor’ – with a bow – ‘in such pleasant company, upon my word,’ said Stephen Maturin. ‘Might it not be that the difficulty arose from your own particular care – from your explaining in Spanish, in Castilian Spanish?’

‘Why,’ said Jack, filling their glasses and smiling through his wine at the sun, ‘it seemed to me that in speaking to Spaniards, it was reasonable to use what Spanish I could muster.’

‘You were forgetting, of course, that Catalan is the language they speak in these islands.’

‘What is Catalan?’ ‘Why, the language of Catalonia – of the islands, of the whole of the Mediterranean coast down to Alicante and beyond. Of Barcelona. Of Lerida. All the richest part of the peninsula.’

‘You astonish me. I had no notion of it. Another language, sir? But I dare say it is much the same thing – a putain, as they say in France?’

‘Oh no, nothing of the kind – not like at all. A far finer language. More learned, more literary. Much nearer the Latin. And by the by, I believe the word is patois, sir, if you will allow me.’

‘Patois – just so. Yet I swear the other is a word: I learnt it somewhere,’ said Jack. ‘But I must not play the scholar with you, sir, I find. Pray, is it very different to the ear, the unlearned ear?’

‘As different as Italian and Portuguese. Mutually incomprehensible – they sound entirely unlike. The intonation of each is in an utterly different key. As unlike as Gluck and Mozart. This excellent dish by me, for instance (and I see that they did their best to follow your orders), is jabalí in Spanish, whereas in Catalan it is senglar.’

‘Is it swine’s flesh?’

‘Wild boar. Allow me…’

‘You are very good. May I trouble you for the salt? It is capital eating, to be sure; but I should never have guessed it was swine’s flesh. What are these well-tasting soft dark things?’

‘There you pose me. They are bolets in Catalan: but what they are called in English I cannot tell. They probably have no name – no country name, I mean, though the naturalist will always recognize them in the boletus edulis of Linnaeus.’

‘How…?’ began Jack, looking at Stephen Maturin with candid affection. He had eaten two or three pounds of mutton, and the boar on top of the sheep brought out all his benevolence. ‘How…?’But finding that he was on the edge of questioning a guest he filled up the space with a cough and rang the bell for the waiter, gathering the empty decanters over to his side of the table.

The question was in the air, however, and only a most repulsive or indeed a morose reserve would have ignored it. ‘I was brought up in these parts,’ observed Stephen Maturin. ‘I spent a great part of my young days with my uncle in Barcelona or with my grandmother in the country behind Lerida – indeed, I must have spent more time in Catalonia than I did in Ireland; and when first I went home to attend the university I carried out my mathematical exercises in Catalan, for the figures came more naturally to my mind.’

‘So you speak it like a native, sir, I am sure,’ said Jack. ‘What a capital thing. That is what I call making a good use of one’s childhood. I wish I could say as much.’

‘No, no,’ said Stephen, shaking his head. ‘I made a very poor use of my time indeed: I did come to a tolerable acquaintance with the birds – a very rich country in raptores, sir – and the reptiles; but the insects, apart from the lepidoptera, and the plants – what deserts of gross sterile brutish ignorance! It was not until I had been some years in Ireland and had written my little work on the phanerogams of Upper Ossory that I came to understand how monstrously I had wasted my time. A vast tract of country to all intents and purposes untouched since Willughby and Ray passed through towards the end of the last age. The King of Spain invited Linnaeus to come, with liberty of conscience, as no doubt you remember; but he declined: I had had all these unexplored riches at my command, and I had ignored them. Think what Pallas, think what the learned Solander, or the Gmelins, old and young, would have accomplished! That was why I fastened upon the first opportunity that offered and agreed to accompany old Mr Browne: it is true that Minorca is not the mainland, but then, on the other hand, so great an area of calcareous rock has its particular flora, and all that flows from that interesting state.’

‘Mr Brown of the dockyard? The naval officer? I know him well,’ cried Jack. ‘An excellent companion – loves to sing a round – writes a charming little tune.’

‘No. My patient died at sea and we buried him up there by St Philip’s: poor fellow, he was in the last stages of phthisis. I had hoped to get him here – a change of air and regimen can work wonders in these cases – but when Mr Florey and I opened his body we found so great a … In short, we found that his advisers (and they were the best in Dublin) had been altogether too sanguine.’

‘You cut him up?’ cried Jack, leaning back from his plate.

‘Yes: we thought it proper, to satisfy his friends. Though upon my word they seem wonderfully little concerned. It is weeks since I wrote to the only relative I know of, a gentleman in the county Fermanagh, and never a word has come back at all.’

There was a pause. Jack filled their glasses (how the tide went in and out) and observed, ‘Had I known you was a surgeon, sir, I do not think I could have resisted the temptation of pressing you.’

‘Surgeons are excellent fellows,’ said Stephen Maturin with a touch of acerbity. ‘And where should we be without them, God forbid: and, indeed, the skill and dispatch and dexterity with which Mr Florey at the hospital here everted Mr Browne’s eparterial bronchus would have amazed and delighted you. But I have not the honour of counting myself among them, sir. I am a physician.’

‘I beg your pardon: oh dear me, what a sad blunder. But even so, Doctor, even so, I think I should have had you run aboard and kept under hatches till we were at sea. My poor Sophie has no surgeon and there is no likelihood of finding her one. Come, sir, cannot I prevail upon you to go to sea? A man-of-war is the very thing for a philosopher, above all in the Mediterranean: there are the birds, the fishes – I could promise you some monstrous strange fishes – the natural phenomena, the meteors, the chance of prize-money. For even Aristotle would have been moved by prize-money. Doubloons, sir: they lie in soft leather sacks, you know, about so big, and they are wonderfully heavy in your hand. Two is all a man can carry.’

He had spoken in a bantering tone, never dreaming of a serious reply, and he was astonished to hear Stephen say, ‘But I am in no way qualified to be a naval surgeon. To be sure, I have done a great deal of anatomical dissection, and I am not unacquainted with most of the usual chirurgical operations; but I know nothing of naval hygiene, nothing of the particular maladies of seamen…’

‘Bless you,’ cried Jack, ‘never strain at gnats of that kind. Think of what we are usually sent – surgeon’s mates, wretched half-grown stunted apprentices that have knocked about an apothecary’s shop just long enough for the Navy Office to give them a warrant. They know nothing of surgery, let alone physic; they learn on the poor seamen as they go along, and they hope for an experienced loblolly boy or a beast-leech or a cunning-man or maybe a butcher among the hands – the press brings in all sorts. And when they have picked up a smattering of their trade, off they go into frigates and ships of the line. No, no. We should be delighted to have you – more than delighted. Do, pray, consider of it, if only for a while. I need not say,’ he added, with a particularly earnest look, ‘how much pleasure it would give me, was we to be shipmates.’

The waiter opened the door, saying, ‘Marine,’ and immediately behind him appeared the red-coat, bearing a packet. ‘Captain Aubrey, sir?’ he cried in an outdoor voice. ‘Captain Harte’s compliment.’ He disappeared with a rumble of boots, and Jack observed, ‘Those must be my orders.’

‘Do not mind me, I beg,’ said Stephen. ‘You must read them directly.’ He took up Jack’s fiddle and walked away to the end of the room, where he played a low, whispering scale, over and over again.

The orders were very much what he had expected: they required him to complete his stores and provisions with the utmost possible dispatch and to convoy twelve sail of merchantmen and transports (named in the margin) to Cagliari. He was to travel at a very great pace, but he was by no means to endanger his masts, yards or sails: he was to shrink from no danger, but on the other hand he was on no account to incur any risk whatsoever. Then, labelled secret, the instructions for the private signal – the difference between friend and foe, between good and bad: ‘The ship first making the signal is to hoist a red flag at the foretopmast head and a white flag with a pendant over the flag at the main. To be answered with a white flag with a pendant over the flag at the maintopmast head and a blue flag at the foretopmast head. The ship that first made the signal is to fire one gun to windward, which the other is to answer by firing three guns to leeward in slow time.’ Lastly, there was a note to say that Lieutenant Dillon had been appointed to the Sophie, vice Mr Baldick, and that he would shortly arrive in the Burford.

‘Here’s good news,’ said Jack. ‘I am to have a capital fellow as my lieutenant: we are only allowed one in the Sophie, you know, so it is very important … I do not know him personally, but he is an excellent fellow, that I am sure of. He distinguished himself very much in the Dart, a hired cutter – set about three French privateers in the Sicily Channel, sank one and took another. Everyone in the fleet talked about it at the time; but his letter was never printed in the Gazette, and he was not promoted. It was infernal bad luck. I wonder at it, for it was not as though he had no interest: Fitzgerald, who knows all about these things, told me he was a nephew, or cousin was it? to a peer whose name I forget. And in any case it was a very creditable thing – dozens of men have got their step for much less. I did, for one.’

‘May I ask what you did? I know so little about naval matters.’

‘Oh, I simply got knocked on the head, once at the Nile and then again when the Généreux took the old Leander: rewards were obliged to be handed out, so I being the only surviving lieutenant, one came my way at last. It took its time, upon my word, but it was very welcome when it came, however slow and undeserved. What do you say to taking tea? And perhaps a piece of muffin? Or should you rather stay with the port?’

‘Tea would make me very happy,’ said Stephen. ‘But tell me,’ he said, walking back to the fiddle and tucking it under his chin, ‘do not your naval appointments entail great expense, going to London, uniforms, oaths, levees…?’

‘Oaths? Oh, you refer to the swearing-in. No. That applies only to lieutenants – you go to the Admiralty and they read you a piece about allegiance and supremacy and utterly renouncing the Pope; you feel very solemn and say “to this I swear” and the chap at the high desk says “and that will be half a guinea”, which does rather take away from the effect, you know. But it is only commissioned officers – medical men are appointed by a warrant. You would not object to taking an oath, however,’ he said, smiling; and then feeling that this remark was a little indelicate, a little personal, he went on, ‘I was shipmates with a poor fellow once that objected to taking an oath, any oath, on principle. I never could like him – he was for ever touching his face. He was nervous, I believe, and it gave him countenance; but whenever you looked at him there he was with a finger at his mouth, or pressing his cheek, or pulling his chin awry. It is nothing, of course; but when you are penned up with it in the same wardroom it grows tedious, day after day all through a long commission. In the gun-room or the cockpit you can call out “Leave your face alone, for God’s sake,” but in the wardroom you must bear with it. However, he took to reading in his Bible, and he conceived this notion that he must not take an oath; and when there was that foolish court-martial on poor Bentham he was called as a witness and refused, flatly refused, to be sworn. He told Old Jarvie it was contrary to something in the Gospels. Now that might have washed with Gambier or Saumarez or someone given to tracts, but not with Old Jarvie, by God. He was broke, I am sorry to say: I never could like him – to tell you the truth, he smelt too – but he was a tolerably good seaman and there was no vice in him. That is what I mean when I say you would not object to an oath – you are not an enthusiast.’

‘No, certainly,’ said Stephen. ‘I am not an enthusiast. I was brought up by a philosopher, or perhaps I should say a philosophe; and some of his philosophy has stuck to me. He would have called an oath a childish thing – otiose if voluntary and rightly to be evaded or ignored if imposed. For few people today, even among your tarpaulins, are weak enough to believe in Earl Godwin’s piece of bread.’

There was a long pause while the tea was brought in. ‘You take milk in your tea, Doctor?’ asked Jack.

‘If you please,’ said Stephen. He was obviously deep in thought: his eyes were fixed upon vacancy and his mouth was pursed in a silent whistle.

‘I wish…’ said Jack.

‘It is always said to be weak, and impolitic, to show oneself at a disadvantage,’ said Stephen, bearing him down. ‘But you speak to me with such candour that I cannot prevent myself from doing the same. Your offer, your suggestion, tempts me exceedingly; for apart from those considerations that you so obligingly mention, and which I reciprocate most heartily, I am very much at a stand, here in Minorca. The patient I was to attend until the autumn has died. I had understood him to be a man of substance – he had a house in Merrion Square – but when Mr Florey and I looked through his effects before sealing them we found nothing whatever, neither money nor letters of credit. His servant decamped, which may explain it: but his friends do not answer my letters; the war has cut me off from my little patrimony in Spain; and when I told you, some time ago, that I had not eaten so well for a great while, I did not speak figuratively.’

‘Oh, what a very shocking thing!’ cried Jack. ‘I am heartily sorry for your embarrassment, and if the – the res angusta is pressing, I hope you will allow me…’ His hand was in his breeches pocket, but Stephen Maturin said ‘No, no, no,’ a dozen times smiling and nodding. ‘But you are very good.’

‘I am heartily sorry for your embarrassment, Doctor,’ repeated Jack, ‘and I am almost ashamed to profit by it. But my Sophie must have a medical man – apart from anything else, you have no notion of what a hypochondriac your seaman is: they love to be physicked, and a ship’s company without someone to look after them, even the rawest half-grown surgeon’s mate, is not a happy ship’s company – and then again it is the direct answer to your immediate difficulties. The pay is contemptible for a learned man – five pounds a month – and I am ashamed to mention it; but there is the chance of prize-money, and I believe there are certain perquisites, such as Queen Anne’s Gift, and something for every man with the pox. It is stopped out of their pay.’

‘Oh, as for money, I am not greatly concerned with that. If the immortal Linnaeus could traverse five thousand miles of Lapland, living upon twenty-five pounds, surely I can … But is the thing in itself really feasible? Surely there must be an official appointment? Uniform? Instruments? Drugs, medical necessities?’

‘Now that you come to ask me these fine points, it is surprising how little I know,’ said Jack, smiling. ‘But Lord love you, Doctor, we must not let trifles stand in the way. A warrant from the Navy Office you must have, that I am sure of; but I know the admiral will give you an acting order the minute I ask him – delighted to do so. As for uniform, there is nothing particular for surgeons, though a blue coat is usual. Instruments and so on – there you have me. I believe Apothecaries’ Hall sends a chest aboard: Florey will know, or any of the surgeons. But at all events come aboard directly. Come as soon as you like – come tomorrow, say, and we will dine together. Even the acting order will take some little time, so make this voyage as my guest. It will not be comfortable – no elbow-room in a brig, you know – but it will introduce you to naval life; and if you have a saucy landlord, it will dish him instantly. Let me fill your cup. And I am sure you will like it, for it is amazingly philosophical.’

‘Certainly,’ said Stephen. ‘For a philosopher, a student of human nature, what could be better? The subjects of his inquiry shut up together, unable to escape his gaze, their passions heightened by the dangers of war, the hazards of their calling, their isolation from women and their curious, but uniform, diet. And by the glow of patriotic fervour, no doubt.’ – with a bow to Jack – ‘It is true that for some time past I have taken more interest in the cryptogams than in my fellow-men; but even so, a ship must be a most instructive theatre for an inquiring mind.’

‘Prodigiously instructive, I do assure you, Doctor,’ said Jack. ‘How happy you make me: to have Dillon as the Sophie’s lieutenant and a Dublin physician as her surgeon – by the way, you are countrymen, of course. Perhaps you know Mr Dillon?’

‘There are so many Dillons,’ said Stephen, with a chill settling about his heart. ‘What is his Christian name?’

‘James,’ said Jack, looking at the note.

‘No,’ said Stephen deliberately. ‘I do not remember to have met any James Dillon.’

‘Mr Marshall,’ said Jack, ‘pass the word for the carpenter, if you please. I have a guest coming aboard: we must do our best to make him comfortable. He is a physician, a great man in the philosophical line.’

‘An astronomer, sir?’ asked the master eagerly.

‘Rather more of a botanist, I take it,’ said Jack. ‘But I have great hopes that if we make him comfortable he may stay with us as the Sophie’s surgeon. Think what a famous thing that would be for the ship’s company!’

‘Indeed it would, sir. They were right upset when Mr Jackson went off to the Pallas, and to replace him with a physician would be a great stroke. There’s one aboard the flagship and one at Gibraltar, but not another in the whole fleet, not that I know of. They charge a guinea a visit, by land; or so I have heard tell.’

‘Even more, Mr Marshall, even more. Is that water aboard?’

‘All aboard and stowed, sir, except for the last two casks.’

‘There you are, Mr Lamb. I want you to have a look at the bulkhead of my sleeping-cabin and see what you can do to make it a little more roomy for a friend: you may be able to shift it for’ard a good six inches. Yes, Mr Babbington, what is it?’

‘If you please, sir, the Burford is signalling over the headland.’

‘Very good. Now let the purser, the gunner and the bosun know I want to see them.’

From that moment on the captain of the Sophie was plunged deep into her accounts – her muster-book, slop-book, tickets, sick-book, complete-book, gunner’s, bosun’s and carpenter’s expenses, supplies and returns, general account of provisions received and returned, and quarterly account of same, together with certificates of the quantity of spirits, wine, cocoa and tea issued, to say nothing of the log, letter and order books – and what with having dined extremely well and not being good with figures at any time, he very soon lost his footing. Most of his dealings were with Ricketts, the purser; and as Jack grew irritable in his confusion it seemed to him that he detected a certain smoothness in the way the purser presented his interminable sums and balances. There were papers here, quittances, acknowledgements and receipts that he was being asked to sign; and he knew very well that he did not understand them all.

‘Mr Ricketts,’ he said, at the end of a long, easy explanation that conveyed nothing to him at all, ‘here in the muster-book, at number 178, is Charles Stephen Ricketts.’

‘Yes, sir. My son, sir.’

‘Just so. I see that he appeared on November 30th, 1797. From Tonnant, late Princess Royal. There is no age by his name.’

‘Ah, let me see: Charlie must have been rising twelve by then, sir.’

‘He was rated Able Seaman.’

‘Yes, sir. Ha, ha!’

It was a perfectly ordinary little everyday fraud; but it was illegal. Jack did not smile. He went on, ‘AB to September 20th, 1798, then rated Clerk. And then on November 10th, 1799, he was rated Midshipman.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the purser: not only was there that little awkwardness of the eleven-year-old able seaman, but Mr Ricketts’ quick ear caught the slight emphasis on the word rated and its slightly unusual repetition. The message it conveyed was this: ‘I may seem a poor man of business; but if you try any purser’s tricks with me, I am athwart your hawse and I can rake you from stem to stern. What is more, one captain’s rating can be disrated by another, and if you trouble my sleep, by God, I shall turn your boy before the mast and flog the tender pink skin off his back every day for the rest of the commission.’ Jack’s head was aching; his eyes were slightly rimmed with red from the port, and there was so clear a hint of latent ferocity in them that the purser took the message very seriously. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said again. ‘Yes. Now here is the list of dockyard tallies: would you like me to explain the different headings in detail, sir?’

‘If you please, Mr Ricketts.’

This was Jack’s first direct, fully responsible acquaintance with book-keeping, and he did not much relish it. Even a small vessel (and the Sophie barely exceeded a hundred and fifty tons) needs a wonderful amount of stores: casks of beef, pork and butter all numbered and signed for, puncheons, butts and half-pieces of rum, hard-tack by the ton from Old Weevil, dried soup with the broad arrow upon it, quite apart from the gunner’s powder (mealed, corned and best patent), sponges, worms, matches, priming-irons, wads and shot – bar, chain, case, langrage, grape or plain round – and the countless objects needed (and so very often embezzled) by the bosun – the blocks, the long-tackle, single, double, parrel, quarter-coak, double-coak, flat-side, double thin-coak, single thin-coak, single strap-bound and sister blocks alone made up a whole Lent litany. Here Jack was far more at home, for the difference between a single double-scored and a single-shoulder block was as clear to him as that between night and day, or right and wrong – far clearer, on occasion. But by now his mind, used to grappling with concrete physical problems, was thoroughly tired: he looked wistfully over the dog-eared, tatty books piled up on the curving rim of the lockers out through the cabin windows at the brilliant air and the dancing sea. He passed his hand over his forehead and said, ‘We will deal with the rest another time, Mr Ricketts. What a God-damned great heap of paper it is, to be sure: I see that a clerk is a very necessary member of the ship’s company. That reminds me, I have appointed a young man – he will be coming aboard today. I am sure you will ease him into his duties, Mr Ricketts. He seems willing and competent, and he is nephew to Mr Williams, the prize-agent. I think it is to the Sophie’s advantage that we should be well with the prize-agent, Mr Ricketts?’

‘Indeed it is, sir,’ said the purser, with deep conviction.

‘Now I must go across to the dockyard with the bosun before the evening gun,’ said Jack, escaping into the open air. As he set foot upon deck so young Richards came up the larboard side, accompanied by a Negro, well over six feet tall. ‘Here is the young man I was telling you about, Mr Ricketts. And this is the seaman you have brought me, Mr Richards? A fine stout fellow he looks, too. What is his name?’

‘Alfred King, if you please, sir.’

‘Can you hand, reef and steer, King?’

The Negro nodded his round head; there was a fine flash of white across his face and he grunted aloud. Jack frowned, for this was no way to address a captain on his own quarter-deck. ‘Come, sir,’ he said sharply, ‘haven’t you got a civil tongue in your head?’

Looking suddenly grey and apprehensive the Negro shook his head. ‘If you please, sir,’ said the clerk, ‘he has no tongue. The Moors cut it out.’

‘Oh,’ said Jack, taken aback, ‘oh. Well, stow him for’ard. I will read him in by and by. Mr Babbington, take Mr Richards below and show him the midshipmen’s berth. Come, Mr Watt, we must get to the dockyard before the idle dogs stop work altogether.’

‘There is a man to gladden your heart, Mr Watt,’ said Jack, as the cutter sped across the harbour. ‘I wish I could find another score or so like him. You don’t seem very taken with the idea, Mr Watt?’

‘Well, sir, I should never say no to a prime seaman, to be sure. And to be sure we could swap some of our landmen (not that we have many left, being as we’ve been in commission so long, and them as was going to run having run and most of the rest rated ordinary, if not able…’ The bosun could not find his way out of his parenthesis, and after a staring pause he wound up by saying, ‘But as for mere numbers, why no, sir.’

‘Not even with the draft for harbour-duties?’

‘Why, bless you, sir, they never amounted to half a dozen, and we took good care they was all the hard bargains and right awkward buggers. Beg pardon, sir: the idle men. So as for mere numbers, why no, sir. In a three-watch brig like the Sophie it’s a puzzle to stow ’em all between-decks as it is: she’s a trim, comfortable, home-like little vessel, right enough, but she ain’t what you might call roomy.’

Jack made no reply to this; but it confirmed a good many of his impressions, and he reflected upon them until the boat reached the yard.

‘Captain Aubrey!’ cried Mr Brown, the officer in charge of the yard. ‘Let me shake you by the hand, sir, and wish you joy. I am very happy to see you.’

‘Thank you, sir; thank you very much indeed.’ They shook hands. ‘This is the first time I have seen you in your kingdom, sir.’

‘Commodious, ain’t it?’ said the naval officer. ‘Rope-walk over there. Sail-loft behind your old Généreux. I only wish there were a higher wall around the timber-yard: you would never believe how many flaming thieves there are in this island, that creep over the wall by night and take away my spars: or try to. It is my belief they are sometimes set on it by the captains; but captains or not, I shall crucify the next son of a bitch I find so much as looking at a dog-pawl.’

‘It is my belief, Mr Brown, that you will never be really happy until there is not a King’s ship left in the Mediterranean and you can walk round your yard mustering a full complement of paint-pots every day of the week, never issuing out so much as a treenail from one year’s end to the next.’

‘You just listen to me, young man,’ said Mr Brown, laying his hand on Jack’s sleeve. ‘Just you listen to age and experience. Your good captain never wants anything from a dockyard. He makes do with what he has. He takes great care of the King’s stores: nothing is ever wasted: he pays his bottom with his own slush: he worms his cables deep with twice-laid stuff and serves and parcels them so there is never any fretting in the hawse anywhere: he cares for his sails far more than for his own skin, and he never sets his royals – nasty, unnecessary, flash, gimcrack things. And the result is promotion, Mr Aubrey; for we make our report to the Admiralty, as you know, and it carries the greatest possible weight. What made Trotter a post-captain? The fact that he was the most economical master and commander on the station. Some men carried away topmasts two and three times in a year: never Trotter. Take your own good Captain Allen. Never did he come to me with one of those horrible lists as long as his own pennant. And look at him now, in command of as pretty a frigate as you could wish. But why do I tell you all this, Captain Aubrey? I know very well you are not one of these spendthrift, fling-it-down-the-kennel young commanders, not after the care you took bringing in the Généreux. Besides, the Sophie is perfectly well found in every possible respect. Except conceivably in the article of paint. I might, at great inconvenience to other captains, find you some yellow paint, a very little yellow paint.’