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Adams, his clerk on and off these many years but now styled his secretary
(and paid as such) - for although on this occasion it had been agreed that Jack,
with a small squadron soon to be split up for various duties while he himself
was to have such a particular mission, should not have a captain under him, he
was certainly allowed a secretary during all this time they rearranged the
forces at hand and the recent drafts, the Commodore exercising them at gunnery
whenever it was at all possible and dining regularly with his captains. Two of
them he liked very well: young Pomfret in acting command of Pomone and Harris
of Briseis, both excellent seamen and both of his own mind entirely about the
capital importance of rapid, accurate fire. Brawley and Cartwright of the
corvettes Rainbow and Ganymede, though somewhat lacking in authority, were
agreeable young men; but they were not fortunate in their officers and neither
ship was in first-rate order, which was a pity, since both were Bermuda-built,
dry, swift and weatherly. Ward of the Dover on the other hand was the
kind of man Jack could not possibly like: heavy, graceless, dark-faced; rude,
domineering and inefficient. He was said to be rich and he was certainly mean:
a very rare combination in a sailor, though Jack had met it before, a man
generally disliked is hardly apt to lavish good food and wine on those who
despise him; and Ward’s dinners were execrable.
    The wind, which at times was strong enough to send
small pebbles flying through the air on the upper reaches of the Rock, did not
interrupt Stephen’s habit of visiting the hospital every morning: he generally
went there with Jacob, and on two separate occasions he had the pleasure of
carrying out his particular operation of suprapubic cystotomy in the presence
of the Physician of the Fleet and of Poll, who comforted the patient and passed
the sutures. She told Jacob in private ‘that it was the neatest, quickest job
she had ever seen - should never have believed it could have been done so
quick, and with scarcely a groan. I shall light a candle for each of them,
against the infection.’
    Yet although the wind did not interfere with his
work, which included a very minute dissection, with Jacob’s help, of the
anomalous hand, it did away with his outdoor pleasure almost entirely. The
migrant birds, always averse to crossing wide expanses of sea and wholly
incapable of making headway against gales of this nature, were pinned down in Morocco; and in the sheltered
hollows behind Cape Spartel twenty booted eagles might
be seen in a single bush. He turned therefore to an occupation that fell into neither category and, it having been turning in his mind for
some time, particularly at night, he quickly finished the second part of his
suite, a forlan, copied it fair that afternoon and showed it to Jack in the
evening.
    Sitting there with the score tilted towards the
lamp and what little light there was, with the small rain sweeping in swathes
across the sea, his mouth now formed for whistling (but silent), now for a very
deep humming where the ‘cello came in, Jack came to the end of the saraband,
with its curiously reiterated melody. He gathered the sheets and reached for the
forlan: ‘It is terribly sad,’ he observed, almost to himself - words he wished
unsaid with all his heart.
    ‘Do you know any happy music?’ asked Stephen. ‘I do
not.’
    Embarrassment hung there in the great cabin for no
more than a moment before it was dissipated first by a measured series of small
explosions and then by Salmon, master’s mate, bursting in as the ship, heeling
before a fresh blast, shot him through the door. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he cried,
‘beg pardon. Ringle’s come in. That was her, sir, saluting the flag.’
    Divided between fury that the schooner could have
come in unseen and unhailed and delight at her presence, Jack gave Salmon a
cold glance. He saw that the young man was dripping to a most uncommon degree
and