Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O’Brian Page B

had 119 killed and ninety-seven wounded. Captain Hamilton was knighted, and after that the Surprise was nearly always allowed a third lieutenant, an unofficial but a customary indulgence.'
       'Heavens, sir, that was a famous victory,' cried Mrs Oakes, clasping her hands.
       'So it was, ma'am,' said Jack. 'Allow me to carve you a little of this soused hog's face. Mr Martin, the bottle stands by you, sir. But in a way your running fight, tearing down the Channel for example in a heavy sea with all possible sail aboard, a lee-shore within pistol-shot, both sides evenly matched and both blazing away like Guy Fawkes' night is even finer. Mr Davidge, could you tell about the Amethyst and the Thétis in the year eight, do you think? Lord, that was such an action!'
       'Pray do, Mr Davidge,' said Mrs Oakes. 'Nothing could please me more.'
       'A glass of wine with you, Mr Davidge, while you collect your mind,' said Jack, at the same time filling Mrs Oakes'.
       'Well, ma'am,' said Davidge, wiping his mouth, 'in the autumn of that year we were close in with the coast of Brittany, the wind at east-north-east, a topgallant breeze, when late in the evening we saw a ship—a heavy frigate she proved to be—slip out of Lorient, steering west by south. We instantly wore in chase . . .'
       The tales followed one another, each amplified with details, names, accounts of various officers by the rest of the table, a fine general hum of talk accompanying but never breaking the central theme; and all this time Jack, true to the naval tradition, filled and refilled his guest's wineglass. While he was calling down the table, asking Pullings who it was that had taken the Eclair in the first place, she said privately, 'Mr Reade, I am sadly ignorant, but I have never dined with the Royal Navy before, and I do not know whether ladies usually retire.'
       'I believe they do, ma'am,' whispered Reade, smiling at her, 'but not until we have drunk the King; and, you know, we drink him sitting down.'
       'I hope I shall hold out till then,' she said; and in fact she was still upright, steady, hardly flushed at all and by no means too talkative (which could not be said for her husband) when the port came round and Jack, with a formal cough, said 'Mr Pullings, the King.'
       'Madam and gentlemen,' said Pullings, 'the King.'
       'Well, sir,' said Clarissa Oakes, turning to Jack when she had done her loyal duty, 'that was a delightful dinner, and now I shall leave you to your wine; but before I go may I too give a toast? To the dear Surprise , and may she long continue to astonish the King's enemies.'

Chapter Three

    After this quite brilliant occasion Clarissa Harvill or rather Oakes faded from Stephen Maturin's immediate attention. He saw her of course every fine day—and the Surprise sailed north-north-east through a series of very fine, indeed heart-lifting days until she reached the calms of the equator—sitting well aft on the leeward side of the quarterdeck, taking the air, or sometimes on the forecastle, where the little girls taught her games with string, cradles far beyond the reach of any European cat; but although he saw her and nodded and spoke, this was a time when he was very much taken up with his intelligence work, and even more so with trying to decipher Diana's letters and make out what underlay their sparsity, brevity and sometimes incoherence. He loved his wife very dearly, and he was perfectly prepared to love his unseen daughter with an equal warmth of affection; but he could not really get at either through the veil of words. Diana had never been much of a correspondent, usually limiting herself to times of arrival or departure or names of guests invited, with brief statements of her health—'quite well' or 'cracked a rib when Tomboy came down at Drayton's oxer'. But her notes or letters had always been perfectly straightforward: there had never been this lack of real communication—these lists of horses and