Work Text:
Spoke Felucca
"That man in the square hole died of plague," said Stephen Maturin, clapping his telescope to.
A hush followed this statement and the wind sighed through the weather-shrouds. The distance between the vessels narrowed fast, and now everyone could see a shape wedged in the after-hatchway, with perhaps two more beneath it; an almost naked body among the tangle of gear near the tiller.
"Keep her full," said Jack. "Doctor, are you quite sure of what you say? Take my glass."
Stephen looked through it for a moment and handed it back. "There is no possible doubt," he said. "I will just make up a bag and then I will go across. There may be some survivors."
The felucca was almost touching now, and a tame genet -- a usual creature in Barbary craft, on account of the rats -- stood on the rail, looking eagerly up, ready to spring. An elderly Swede named Volgardson, the kindliest of men, threw a swab that knocked it off its balance, and all the men along the side hooted and shrieked to frighten it away.
"Mr Dillon," said Jack, "we'll get the starboard tacks aboard."
At once the Sophie sprang to life -- bosun's calls shrilling, hands running to their places, general uproar -- and in the din Stephen cried, "I insist upon a boat -- I protest..."
Jack took him by the elbow and propelled him with affectionate violence into the cabin. "My dear sir," he said, "I am afraid you must not insist, or protest: it is mutiny, you know, and you would be obliged to be hanged. Was you to set foot in that felucca, even if you did not bring back the contagion, we should have to fly the yellow flag at Mahon: and you know what that means. Forty mortal bloody days on the quarantine island and shot if you stray outside the pallisado, that is what. And whether you brought it back or not, half the hands would die of fright."
"You mean to sail directly away from that ship, giving it no assistance?"
"Yes, sir."
"Upon your own head, then."
"Certainly."
"Certainly!" cried Maturin, aghast. "You stand before me, a model of complacence, of cold assurance, and say certainly you will take the lives -- the deaths -- of the men on that ship upon your own head?"
"I do. As it happens, I do not think there are lives there to be saved--"
"You cannot know that!"
"--but what I do know for certain," over-riding him, "is that my command is crewed by living men who would likely prefer to remain so. My first duty is to--"
"Send me alone."
"No."
"Send me alone. There are precautions I can take, and certain measures when I return--"
"You would row across and board that felucca unassisted?"
"I would. I will. Do not smile upon me in that indulgent manner, sir, it is offensive in the highest degree!"
Captain Aubrey ceased smiling and swallowed the upraised, shaking fist of his surgeon within his capacious palm. "Lower your voice, sir, and lower your hand. You are new to the service, I confess, but you will learn soon enough that there are no private conversations in a 78-foot sloop and no provisions at all for common brawling with your captain. Lower your hand."
Dr Maturin did so, lowering hand, shoulders, head; aswim with frustration, struck with realization, he swayed.
"My dear doctor," said Jack more kindly, putting him in a chair, "was you to persist you'd force official action from me, God forbid. How disagreeable that would be. You see, when afloat...." Jack hoped to toss out the old adage about little walls having big ears or some such -- he grasped about for a moment -- he thought pitchers came into it somewhere -- but he grasped in vain and finally said, "Look here, the point is we simply mustn't screech at each other like a couple of owls, we'll be overheard, and then what? Naval discipline, dear sir: my surgeon clapped in irons and the cat's out of the bag. I've sworn never to see you flogged, you remember. I'd hate to be made a liar." He looked curiously at Maturin. "Though I think you'd take a lashing to win your point."
"No, I concede. I submit," said Stephen in a wooden, wondering tone, speaking, as it were, to himself. "For it is recalled to me that I am, now, in the Navy. Perhaps I must steel myself to impotence, to the distress of intermittent impotence."
Jack coughed. "Well, the one don't follow the other," he said in some confusion and perhaps with some concern. "In my experience, that is. Though I'm not to tell a medical man...."
"I do not speak of the body," Stephen sighed. He roused himself, looked up, and faced Jack squarely. "Captain Aubrey, am I not to go aboard that ship and offer my assistance?"
"You are not, sir."
"Then I must bow to your authority," Stephen said, doing so. "I find I have no choice."
"It's true, you don't, you know," said Jack heartily. "But look here, I keep you for your own good, for you'd scarcely be welcomed back with loving arms. Did you not see the way they knocked the poor cat on its ear when it tried to come aboard? I don't fancy watching them heave a swab at you."
"It was a genet," said Dr Maturin wearily, rubbing his eyes. "An African genet, not Felidae but Viverridae."
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"You called it a cat. It is not a cat."
"Doctor," said Jack, "I must bow to your authority." He did so with affection, the words 'and a felucca's not a ship' held silent within.
~the end~
(Introductory quotes come from Master and Commander, Norton paperback edition, pages 155-157)