The Golden Ocean. Patrick O’Brian
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in obtaining—’
‘Not a word,’ cried the chaplain, removing his wig and waving it with a courtly air, ‘not a word, I beg. Your father has already expressed himself in the most handsome way. I only hope that you and the service will suit. The Navy is not always what might be called a bed of roses. There is hard lying, short rations sometimes, and always the perils of the sea.
Illi robur et aes triplex
circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem primus—
I am sure that your father’s son is familiar with Horace?’
Peter cautiously said that he was pretty well acquainted with the gentleman, but he did not commit himself any further.
‘Now,’ said Mr Walter, ‘I dare say that you have a good many questions to ask?’
‘If you please, sir,’ said Peter, ‘first may I ask how they fire that gun, and then what a sea-chest is, and why do they keep asking me where mine is?’
‘Why, in action,’ said the chaplain, indicating the walls of the little room, ‘they knock down these bulkheads. The cabins disappear and the whole deck is one long open space, so that they can come at the guns and run them out of the ports. That is called clearing for action. As for your sea-chest, that is the chest that contains your belongings, your slops, your tarpaulin jackets, your nautical instruments, your uniforms—in short everything but your personal stores, which you can entrust to the attendant on the midshipmen’s berth, a very good honest fellow named Jennings.’
‘Uniforms, sir?’ cried Peter with extreme dismay. ‘But we thought the Navy called for no uniform. The King’s cockade in your hat, sure, but no uniform at all: and at home we all said how fortunate it was I was going into the sea-service, for my father could never have set me up in the Army, regimentals costing the teeth from your head—being so very dear, sir.’
‘Why, to be sure that was the case until these last years,’ said Mr Walter. ‘But now most officers wear the same clothes as the gentleman who received you—you took notice of him, no doubt, in his blue laced coat and his white breeches. All the officers in our squadron wear the same, and many commanders insist upon their young gentlemen being so dressed. Mr Anson is most particular. But it is the other things in your sea-chest that are even more important: your navigating instruments, quadrant, parallel rulers, scales and all the rest; your linen; your bedding … Our first lieutenant is rigorous in these matters, and only the other day, only on Thursday I say, he turned away a wretched boy who had the effrontery to appear without so much as his Necessary Tables, to say nothing of a proper supply of other things. Mr Saumarez said, very rightly, that on a long voyage a youngster’s welfare depended essentially upon his equipment—he must be provided with clothes for the tropics and for the high latitudes, quite apart from his weapons and in course stores and money for his mess and for the schoolmaster. That is what we mean by the term sea-chest: the sum total of a young gentleman’s equipment, as well as the brass-bound wooden envelope that contains it.’
‘Sir,’ said Peter in a low voice, ‘I have no sea-chest.’
‘No sea-chest?’ cried the chaplain.
‘No sea-chest, sir; nor anything in it at all.’
‘Dear me, dear me,’ said the chaplain in a shocked undertone, gazing at him in the dim light. ‘No sea-chest whatsoever?’
‘None whatsoever, sir, upon my honour. Only a little small kilageen, as we say, made of leather. From Seamus Joyce’s old cow, that died.’
‘And pray what is in it?’
‘Six shirts and some stockings, sir. And a spare coat, with my handkerchiefs laid in the one pocket and my Bible in the other.’
‘A quadrant, perhaps?’
‘Never the ghost of a quadrant, sir. We were sure—indeed my mother was positive—that the service provided these things …’
‘My poor boy, my poor boy,’ said the chaplain, shaking his head sadly. ‘What a great way off you do live, to be sure. Six shirts for a voyage that may last two or three years? Oh dear me, dear me. Do you know where we are bound?’
‘Yes, sir. We are bound for the Great South Sea, there to cruise upon the Spaniards, and confound ’em unawares.’
‘You know that? Good heavens above! It is supposed to be a secret. Who told you?’
‘Oh,’ said Peter vaguely, for his mind was too much taken up with the dreadful news to be much concerned with the question, ‘oh, everybody said so, at home. Michael Noonan the excise man, Patrick Lynch the sow-gelder—everyone.’
‘Even in that remote waste,’ said the chaplain to himself. ‘That is how State secrets are kept in this degenerate age. I must tell the Commodore. How long have the Spaniards been aware of the plan, I wonder?’ He paused. ‘However, we must get back to the matter in hand. So you have no sea-chest, Peter, I collect?’
‘No sea-chest, sir,’ said Peter again, looking so wan that even in this dim light the chaplain could make out his distress. They remained silent for some moments, Peter’s heart dying within him—so near to his goal, the ship actually stirring under his feet at this minute, and then to be turned back—and Mr Walter’s mind busily turning over the meagre resources of a lean, lean purse and an overloaded credit.
‘Peter,’ he said, ‘you must know that unhappily I am not a rich man, and that my own provision for this great voyage has quite exhausted what wealth I had. I cannot tell what to do, upon my word. To equip you very modestly might cost as much as twenty pound …’
‘Oh sir,’ said Peter faintly. In Ballynasaggart twenty pounds kept the whole family for twelve months of the year.
‘Twenty pound … Tell me, did your friends not give you somewhat to bear your charges—something for contingencies unforeseen in Ballynasaggart?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter. ‘My father gave me a purse of gold. Six broad pieces, sir, no less.’
‘Why then,’ cried Mr Walter, flinging out his hands in relief and knocking down a pile of books, ‘why then, there you are! O what a relief to my mind this is! It is not enough, to be sure, but with some pinching and contriving and with the advice of my good friend the purser—a most experienced sea-provider—we may rig you out creditably enough to pass muster. So your good father gave you a fine round plump purse, bless him.’
‘He did, sir,’ said Peter, and he hesitated for a moment before adding, ‘But it was all lost at the races.’
‘Lost at the races?’ said Mr Walter, in a wondering, dubious voice.
‘Yes, sir. I grieve to say that at the races it was lost.’
‘Lost at the races!’ cried the chaplain, now flushed with anger. ‘Do you presume to tell me that it was lost at the races? Profligate boy!’ he cried, striking the table an ominous blow.
‘Oh sir, by your leave …’ began Peter.
‘No, sir, not a word: no, no,’ cried the angry chaplain. ‘The brisk intemperance of youth may excuse much; but not this. You know the value of a gold piece to a clergyman with a living like your father’s as well as I do: you know, or you should know, the self-denial and privation needed to put by a single half-guinea. To squander his substance in this manner is an example of heartlessness such as I have rarely encountered. I am disappointed in you, sir; I am profoundly displeased with your conduct; and I wish you good day.’ Mr Walter was a man of high principle, opposed to violence, and he had meant the interview to end with these words. But his unprincipled right hand (much given to generous indignation) rose of its own volition, and swinging forward in a pure arc it struck Peter’s left ear, knocking his head against the gun so briskly that the metal rang again; and Peter fell off his stool, quite amazed.
It took him some moments to collect his wits. In the meantime the chaplain picked him up, straightened his sprawling limbs and put him back