The Surgeon’s Mate

‘So they tell me,’ said Diana: and after a pause, ‘Here is Stephen.’

A few minutes later the boat was alongside, and they made their farewells to the Shannon rather than her people, for they would all meet again on shore in the course of the festivities that would follow the victory – the Admiral had already spoken of a ball. Diana refused Wallis’s offer of a bosun’s chair and ran down after Stephen as lithe and nimble as a boy, while the boat’s crew stared woodenly out into the offing, lest they should see her legs; but she did call out to beg that those on deck might take great care of her trunk. ‘It is my all, you know, my little all,’ she said, smiling up into Mr Wallis’s enchanted face.

They made a curious group there in the stern-sheets as the boat pulled for the shore, a group bound together by strong, intricate relationships; for not only had the two men competed for her liking in the past so that it had very nearly broken their friendship, but Diana had been the great love of Stephen’s life, his prime illusion. She had thrown him over in India in favour of an American, a very wealthy man called Johnson, whose company she found increasingly unpleasant on their arrival in the States and, after the declaration of war, quite intolerable. It was when Maturin reached Boston as a prisoner of war that they came together again and that he found that although he still admired her spirit and beauty, it was as though his heart were numb. What changes in her or in himself had brought this about he could not tell for sure; but he did know that unless his heart could feel again the mainspring of his life was gone. However, they had escaped together, reaching the Shannon in a boat; and they were engaged to be married, an engagement that Stephen felt to be her due, if only as a means of recovering her nationality, and one that to his astonishment she seemed to welcome, although up until this time he had thought her the most intuitively perceptive woman of his acquaintance. Indeed, but for the battle they would already have been man and wife by the law of England if not by that of the Catholic church (for Maturin was a Papist), since Philip Broke had been about to exercise his powers as a captain and marry them at sea, and Diana would have been a British subject once more, instead of a paper American.

Yet in spite of these currents of feeling beneath the surface they talked very cheerfully and calmly all the way to the landing-place and up to the Admiral’s house, where they parted like old friends, Jack to report to the Commissioner and then to see about his post and their lodgings, and Stephen to an unnamed destination with a sailcloth parcel under his arm, his only baggage, while Diana remained with the short-legged, good-natured Lady Harriet Colpoys.

Stephen did not name his destination, but if they had reflected neither of his companions would have had much difficulty in guessing it. In the course of their long service together it had necessarily come to Captain Aubrey’s knowledge that although Dr Maturin was certainly an eminent medical man who chose to sail as a ship’s surgeon for the opportunities of making discoveries in natural philosophy (his chief passion, second only to the overthrow of Buonaparte), he was also one of the Admiralty’s most prized intelligence agents; while immediately before their escape Diana had seen him remove the papers that his parcel contained from the rooms that she and Mr Johnson occupied in Boston, explaining his action by the statement that they would interest an intelligence officer he happened to know in Halifax. Stephen was perfectly aware of this, but the long-established habit, the second nature of extreme discretion to which he owed his continuing existence made him non-committal in all circumstances; it also caused him to take a roundabout way to the office of his correspondent, looking in shop windows and taking full advantage of those that showed the street behind him. It was an automatic precaution, but here it was an unusually necessary one, for as he knew better than any man in Halifax there were several American agents in the town; and Johnson’s fury at being robbed of both his mistress and his papers would urge him to make extraordinary efforts in the way of revenge.

However, he reached the office unfollowed, with an easy mind, and sent in his name. Major Beck, the Marine in charge of intelligence on the North American station, received him at once. They had not met before and Beck looked at him with lively curiosity: Dr Maturin had a great reputation in the department as one of the few wholly voluntary agents who were also wholly effective, wholly professional; and although Maturin’s mixed Irish-Catalan parentage meant that he was primarily an expert on Catalan affairs, Beck knew that the Doctor had recently accomplished the feat of decimating the ranks of the French service by means of false, compromising information conveyed to Paris in all good faith by the Americans. Seeing that this concerned his own field, Beck was officially acquainted with it; but he had also heard vaguer, less official accounts of other equally remarkable coups in Spain and France, and he found that he was most illogically disappointed by the meagre, shabby, undistinguished man who sat on the other side of the desk, slowly undoing a sailcloth parcel. Against all reason Beck had expected a more heroic figure: certainly not one who wore blue spectacles against the sun.

Stephen’s reflexions were equally unflattering. He observed that Beck was an obscurely misshapen fellow with watery goggling eyes, spare sandy hair, no chin, a prominent Adam’s apple, and, in spite of an intelligent forehead, the settled look of a man who fitted nowhere. ‘Are we all, always, so distorted?’ he wondered, thinking of some of his other colleagues.

They talked for a while about the victory, Beck speaking with an enthusiasm that brought colour to his unhealthy thin-skinned yellow face and Stephen steadily disclaiming any particular knowledge of the action: he had been below from the first gun to the last: he knew nothing of the evolutions, nor was he able to speak to the number of British deserters serving in the American ship or of the means employed to seduce them. Beck seemed disappointed.

‘I received your warning about the Frenchmen in Boston,’ said Stephen, struggling with a knot, ‘and I thank you for it. I was able to meet them with a mind prepared.’

‘I trust there was no unpleasantness, sir? Durand is said to be a most unscrupulous, determined officer.’

‘Pontet-Canet was worse: a busy, troublesome fellow that gave me real uneasiness for a while. But, however, I clapped a stopper over his capers.’ Dr Maturin was proud of his nautical expressions: sometimes he got them right, but right or wrong he always brought them out with a slight emphasis of satisfaction, much as others might utter a particularly apt Greek or Latin quotation. ‘And brought him up with a round stern,’ he added. ‘Would you have a knife, at all? This string is really not worth the saving.’

‘How did you do that, sir?’ asked Beck, passing a pair of scissors.

‘I cut his throat,’ said Maturin, shearing through the string. Major Beck was used to bloodshed in open and in clandestine war, but his visitor’s everyday, unemphatic tone struck a chill to his heart, the more so as Maturin happened to take off his spectacles at this moment, glancing at Beck with his expressionless pale eyes, the only remarkable thing about him.

‘Now, sir,’ said Stephen, the documents unwrapped at last, ‘you are no doubt acquainted with Mr Harry Johnson’s role in American intelligence?’

‘Oh yes, indeed.’ Beck could not be unaware of his chief opponent’s activities in Canada: from the first days of his appointment he had been struggling against Johnson’s well-organized, well-supplied network of agents.

‘Very well. These are papers that I took from his desk and strong-box in Boston. The Frenchmen were consulting them when I put an end to their machinations.’ He laid them one by one on the Major’s desk: a list of American agents in Canada and the West Indies, with comments; ciphers to be used on various occasions; letters to the Secretary of State containing a detailed account of the past and present relationships between the French and American intelligence services; remarks on his French colleagues’ characters, abilities, and intentions; projects for future operations; a full appreciation of the British position on the Great Lakes…

By the time the last document took its place on the desk Dr Maturin had reached and surpassed the heroic stature expected of him. Major Beck gazed over the heap of papers with deep respect, with something not far removed from awe. ‘It is the completest thing,’ he said, ‘the completest thing that ever I heard tell of. A clean sweep, by God! This first list alone will keep a firing-squad busy for weeks. I must digest the whole mass. These will be my bedside companions for many a night.’

‘Not these documents themselves, sir, if you will allow me. Sir Joseph and his cryptographers must have them –’ the Major bowed at Sir Joseph’s name, ‘ – and I propose carrying the greater part to London by the first ship that offers. Copies, by all means, although that raises certain problems too, as you know very well. However, before we discuss the copying or indeed anything else, I have an observation to make: an observation and a request. Have you heard of Mrs Villiers?’

‘Diana Villiers, Johnson’s mistress, a renegade English-woman?’

‘No, sir,’ said Stephen, with a cold, unwinking look. ‘No, sir. Mrs Villiers was not Johnson’s mistress: she merely accepted his protection in a foreign land. Nor is she in any conceivable way a renegade. Not only did they disagree most bitterly when he attempted to enlist her in the war against her own country, but it was owing to her that I came into possession of these documents. I should be sorry to hear her name used lightly.’

‘Yet, sir,’ said Beck after a moment’s hesitation, ‘and I speak under correction, without intending the least disrespect to the lady, it appears that she took out papers of naturalization in the States.’

‘That was a thoughtless act, one that she regarded as a trifling formality without the least real effect upon her natural allegiance. It was very strongly represented to her, that the process would facilitate Mr Johnson’s divorce.’ Stephen observed a certain knowingness or fellow-feeling or even connivance in the Major’s eye; he frowned, and went on in a colder tone, ‘But since she is technically an enemy alien, sir, I wish to observe – I wish to state it as my considered opinion, that the usual certificate should be made out in her favour, as to one of our people; although at the same time I may point out that she has little or no notion of my connexion with the department. I have brought her with me, and apart from all other considerations it would not be fitting that she should be molested, or made uneasy in any way.’

‘Directly, sir,’ said Major Beck, ringing a bell. ‘I am glad you told me,’ he said. ‘Archbold would certainly have laid her by the heels before nightfall. We have had any number of females – however, the lady in question belongs to quite another category.’ His assistant came in, a man quite as ugly as Major Beck, with rather more of that indefinable appearance of hidden deformity, but with much less of his apparent intelligence. ‘Mr Archbold,’ said the Major, ‘an X certificate in the name of Mrs Villiers, if you please.’ The paper came, Beck completed it with an official wafer and his signature and passed it over, saying, ‘But you will allow me to observe, sir, that this is valid only for my own region. If the lady were to return to England, there might be very considerable difficulties.’

Stephen could have retorted that he intended to do away with these difficulties by marrying Diana and making her a British subject again; but he preferred keeping his own counsel. In any case, he was very, very tired, both from the extraordinary exertions at the time of his escape and from his almost continual surgical activity aboard both ships ever since the battle. He made no reply, therefore, and after a short silence Beck said, ‘I believe, sir, you mentioned a request?’

‘I did. It is that you will authorize the paymaster to accept a draft on my London banking-house. I have an immediate and pressing need for money.’

‘Oh, as for money, Dr Maturin,’ cried Major Beck, ‘I beg you will not trouble with the paymaster and his seven and a half per cent and all the paper-work. I have funds here at my disposal that can deal with any difficulty of that kind at once. They are intended to procure information, and for a single one of these documents, I should be fully justified in…’

‘You are very good, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘but I must tell you that from the very beginning of my connexion with the department I have never accepted a Brummagem ha’penny for anything that I was able to do, or to produce. No. A note to the paymaster will answer perfectly, if you will be so kind. And perhaps you would let me have a couple of discreet able-bodied men: the frontier is no great way off, and until you have dealt with the agents named in Mr Johnson’s list, I should not choose to wander about Halifax alone.’

Preceded by one discreet man, six foot tall, followed by another, and accompanied by a third, Stephen walked to the paymaster’s office, transacted his business, came out with a comfortable bulge in his pocket, and stood for a while in thought. Then, followed by his companion, he took a few irresolute steps down the street before stopping at a corner. ‘I am at a stand,’ he said.

‘Sir?’ said his guardian.

‘I am at a stand. I do not know where I lodge.’

The street was almost empty, since all those who could get away were down at the harbour, staring at the Shannon and the Chesapeake: in this virtual desert the two other men did their best to be inconspicuous, loitering in negligent attitudes, quite detached; but they soon caught their colleague’s nod, and joined him on the corner. ‘The gentleman is at a stand,’ he said. ‘He does not know where he is staying.’

They all looked at Stephen. ‘Has he forgot the name of his hotel?’ suggested one.

‘Have you forgot the name of your hotel, sir?’ asked the first man, bending down to speak in Stephen’s ear. Stephen ran his hand along his bristly jaw, deep in thought, trying to overcome his weariness of mind.

‘He is probably staying at Bailey’s,’ said another. ‘That is where most of the physical gentlemen put up.’

‘Is it Bailey’s, sir?’ asked the first, bending again.

‘White’s? Brown’s? The Goat and Compasses?’ said the others, addressing not Dr Maturin but their companion.

‘I have it,’ cried Stephen. ‘I have the solution. Pray conduct me to the place where the officers receive their letters.’

‘We must hurry, then,’ said the first man. ‘We must even run, sir. They will be closed, else.’ And some minutes, some few hundred yards later he said, panting, ‘There. I was afraid of it. The blinds are drawn.’

The blinds were drawn, but the door was on the jar; and even if it had been tightly shut Captain Aubrey’s strong sea-going voice would still have spread far out into the street. ‘What the devil do you mean with your “after hours”, you idle young hound?’ he was asking. ‘As God’s my life…’

When Stephen opened the door the sound increased, and he perceived that Jack had the young man by the frill of his shirt, that he was shaking him to and fro and calling him ‘an infernal b –’.

The shirt frill came adrift and Jack turned to Stephen. ‘He says it is after hours,’ he cried.

‘It is not only that, sir,’ said the clerk to Stephen, as to a saviour, ‘but Mr Gittings has the keys. There ain’t nothing in the waiting rack and I can’t open the strong-box without I have the keys, it stands to reason.’ He wiped his tears on his sleeve and added, ‘And there’s nothing in it for Captain Aubrey neither, I could pledge my sacred word: though always willing to oblige any gentleman that treats us civil.’

Stephen contemplated the strong-box. It was an old-fashioned affair with a common tumbler lock and it would probably not resist his solicitations more than a few minutes; but this was neither the time nor the place to display his talents. He said, ‘I am happy to find you, Captain Aubrey. The name of our inn, or hotel, has escaped my mind, and I am mortally fatigued. I would give all I possess to go to bed.’

‘You certainly look uncommonly fagged,’ said Jack, dropping the shirt frill. ‘Quite done up. We are at the Goat, and I will take you there directly. Harkee, sir,’ to the clerk, in a last burst of disappointed fury, ‘I shall be here first thing tomorrow, d’ye hear me, there?’

In the street Stephen thanked his escort, sending him back with his best compliments to Major Beck, and he and Jack walked on alone.

‘A miserable goddam afternoon,’ said Jack. ‘Disappointments at every turn – a heroes’ welcome, truly. The town is crammed with soldiers, and I could only get one room between us at the Goat.’

‘That is bad,’ said Stephen, who had often shared a cabin with Captain Aubrey, perhaps the most resounding snorer in the service.

‘Then when I went up the hill to report, the Commissioner was not in the way. There were a good many men waiting for him: we gossiped for a while and I learnt a damned unpleasant thing or two. Harte is back on the Board of Admiralty, and that fellow Wray is made acting second secretary.’

‘Mother of God,’ said Stephen to himself, and well he might: Jack, as a lively bachelor in Minorca, had cuckolded Mr Harte repeatedly, and cuckolds were likely to use their horns even long after their receipt; while Jack had also publicly, justly, accused Mr Wray, a person even then high in Government employ, of cheating at cards. It was an accusation that Wray had not seen fit to resent in the usual manner at the time, but it was not likely that he would stomach it for ever.

‘I waited as long as I could, but then when I reached the office at a brisk run – and I can tell you, Stephen, that brisk running, at my age, ain’t what it used to be – all I found was another disappointment. A miserable goddam afternoon.’

‘Ooh-hoo, husband,’ said a pretty whore in the twilight. ‘Come with me and I will give you a kiss.’

Jack smiled, shook his head, and walked on. ‘Did you notice she called me husband?’ he said after a few paces. ‘They often do. I suppose marriage is the natural state, so that makes it seem less – less wrong.’

The word marriage reminded Stephen that he had meant to take Beck’s certificate, that necessary document, to a priest and arrange for his wedding with Diana; but he could at present scarcely drag himself along – all the weariness of the last few days was rising in him like an overwhelming fog, now that the interminable crisis was past. All that survived was the spirit of contradiction. He said, ‘Not at all. On the contrary, as one of your great men of the past age observed, it is so far from natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.’

‘Hark,’ said Jack, pausing in his stride. Down by the harbour a band had begun Heart of Oak, and a great concourse of people were either chanting the words or cheering. Smoke and the rosy glow of torches could be seen above the roofs, and suddenly the flames themselves came into sight, crossing the far end of their street – an unofficial procession of seamen and civilians, leaping and capering as they passed the narrow gap, and on every hand more people were hurrying down to join it, among them the pretty whore.

Good humour came flooding back into Aubrey’s face. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said. ‘That’s more like a heroes’ welcome. Lord, Stephen, I am so happy, these little vexations apart. And tomorrow, when I have Sophie’s letters, I shall be happier still. Listen. There is another band striking up.’

‘All I ask,’ said Stephen, ‘is that they should welcome their heroes at a decent distance from the Goat – that they should not strike up within a furlong of the inn. Though the Dear knows, I believe I should sleep through ten bands playing in the corridor.’

They may well have played there, or at least outside his window, for the Shannons celebrated their victory as wholeheartedly as they had won it, and Halifax rocked with the sound of their merriment until dawn and beyond; but Dr Maturin lay like a log until a sunbeam, darting through his bed-curtains, teased him into wakefulness at last. His body was beautifully limp, perfectly comfortable; his mind was rested, calm, relaxed; he would have moved out of the beam and lain there browsing among his thoughts, perhaps dropping off again, if he had not heard a somewhat artificial cough, the cough of one who does not wish to wake his companion but rather to advertise his presence if waking has already taken place.

He pushed the curtains aside and met Jack’s eye, his surprisingly sombre eye. Jack was standing by the window, looking unnaturally tall, even taller than usual, and Stephen observed that this was because he had taken off his sling and the arm hanging down by his side changed his proportions. He smiled on seeing Stephen, wished him a good morning, or rather afternoon, and said, ‘I have some letters for you.’

Stephen considered for a moment. At least some part of Jack’s sad appearance arose from the fact that he was wearing a broad black band of crape on his arm; but there was more to it than that. ‘What’s o’clock?’ he asked.

‘Just turned of noon, and I must be away,’ said Jack, giving him a small bundle of letters.

‘You have been up a great while, I make no doubt,’ said Stephen. He looked at the covers without much interest.

‘Yes. I was at that God-damned office the moment they opened their doors. Their chief was away, but even so I made them rummage the place from top to bottom – such disorder you would not credit – but never a word for me.’

‘Several packets have been taken by the Americans, or lost at sea, brother.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Jack. ‘But even so … however, whining will do no good. Then I reported to the Commissioner. He was very civil, very welcoming, and he gave me good news of Broke – had been sitting up for an hour, talking quite rationally, and may be able to write his own dispatch. And he asked me to dinner after the funeral: but I noticed he felt uneasy, and after a good deal of backing and filling out it came. I am not to have Acasta, but am to go home. I was away too long, and she has been given to Robert Kerr.’

The Acasta was a particularly fine forty-gun frigate, one of the few that could be considered a match for the heavy Americans, and Stephen knew how Jack had looked forward to commanding her in these waters. He looked for some words that might soften the blow, but finding none he said, ‘I am grieved for you, Jack. But listen, if you feel the least pain or throbbing in that arm, you are to put it up – you are to put it in your bosom.’ He stretched, gaped, took off his nightcap, and said, ‘You spoke of a funeral?’

‘Yes, of course. You are not awake, Stephen. We bury poor Lawrence of the Chesapeake.’

‘Should I come too? I can be ready in a moment. I should be very willing to show the respect I feel, if it is usual.’

‘No, the custom is only men of the same rank, apart from those detailed to attend and his own officers. Stephen, I must go. Tell me, did you get any money? I shall not have time between the funeral and the dinner, and I should like to do the proper thing as soon as possible.’

‘It is in my coat-pocket, hanging behind the spence.’

Jack plucked out the roll of bank-notes, peeled off what he needed, called out ‘Thankee, Stephen,’ buckled on his sword and ran down the stairs.

All the post-captains in Halifax were gathering on the gun-wharf: he knew most of them, but he only had time to greet one or two before the clock struck; exact to the minute the coffin came ashore with its escort of Marines, and the cortège formed behind it, the few American officers who could walk, the soldiers, the captains two by two, the generals and the Admiral.