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Thought Provoking Address

In this morning’s paper they printed the transcript of an address by Justice Michael Kirby at the Pitt Street Uniting Church. He is one of the most respected justices in Australia. The conservatives loathe him, not only because he is openly gay but because he makes public statements which shame them for their meanness and mendacity. A few years ago they tried to cook up some sexual scandal about him and rent boys but it all fell apart and even the more conservative press rounded on the Federal Government for their ham-fisted attempt to discredit this good man.

Even in the darkest days, my hotline to God was never disconnected
By Michael Kirby
March 31, 2004

When did you first meet God? For me, it was in kindergarten: Mrs Church’s school attached to the Anglican Church of St Andrew at Strathfield in Sydney. In between the plasticine and interminable concerts, I was introduced to God. Generally speaking, we have been on friendly terms ever since.

In the coloured illustrations Mrs Church showed us, later confirmed in the Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, God was portrayed as a Middle Eastern potentate with a beard and a turban. Eventually, when I grew old enough, my parents gave me a Bible which I still have. Many a judicial oath of office I have taken on it which I certainly did not foresee back in the 1940s. I took this Bible (the King James version naturally) to Sunday School at St Andrew’s. At Sunday School I learned of Jesus and his love for us all. It was a wonderful discovery. Since then, I have never felt parted from that love. For me, it was a human manifestation of God that was more comprehensible to my understanding. Most of us, brought up in the Christian tradition, have felt the great power of this discovery. God was not, after all, an angry grandfather with a beard. He (and in those days it was certainly a he) was a very loving presence – rather like our parents, actually. It is a blessing of my life that I have always been surrounded by love. I am not in the slightest embarrassed to talk about it.

When I eventually grew old enough to attend Morning Prayer in St Andrew’s Church, it was like moving into the Big School. Out of the church hall where the kindergarten had been conducted and Bible stories taught in Sunday School, I moved into the church itself. It was then that I found that, almost certainly, God was an Englishman.

Above the altar (or did we call it that in the Sydney diocese?) hung the Australian flag. But in pride of place was the Union Jack. This, after all, was the Church of England. In the 1940s the word “Anglican” never crossed our lips.

I was not quite sure whether I preferred the somewhat cold and haughty God I found at this stage, to the angry prophet from the desert featured in the Michelangelo plates of Arthur Mee. True, this English God was not so angry. He just seemed to be remote – up there with the King, the Queen, Queen Mary the Queen Mother and all the members of the Royal family for whom we prayed each Sunday. The rector was the Reverend Cecil Dillon. He had been an Army chaplain. In those post-War days, he wore a line of military ribbons in proof of his war service. He was a kind and gentle man. He taught me to understand the power of the beautiful liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer in lifting the mind from pedestrian to spiritual thoughts.

I began to have direct conversations with God. They were helped along enormously by Cramner’s beautiful English words. As I came to the church from our home in Concord, I always thought that the Second Collect for Peace was written specially for us at St Andrews:

“Oh God, who are the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”.

I so loved the spiritual feeling that came over me in the sung service that I soon joined the church choir. Sadly, my glorious choral career came to a close because I kept fainting in the choir stalls. It was not caused by overwhelming piety so much as inadequate breakfasts.

The talk of “assaults of our enemies” in the Collect had a resonance with the great English hymns that we sang to God. Come back in your minds to those days. England which, with the dominions had stood alone against the godless fascists and Nazis, had come through the War triumphant. In the words of the hymn, under God, England still had “Dominion over palm and pine”.

We were not the first, or the last, to invoke God in war and to create him in our own image. At that time the British Empire still flourished. In the school map, a quarter of the world was coloured red. We felt pretty sure that God looked on British subjects with special favour. White British people had a civilising mission. But we did not really want Asians or black people in White Australia. We wanted to remain pure white – just like the images of God’s son shown in the stained glass windows. God was certainly not Asian or black. If he was not an Englishman, at the very least he was white like us.

PROTESTANTISM

At about this time I also came to know that there were unfortunate people who lived outside this calm and beautiful English church where God dwelt. Some of them were Roman Catholics. It shocked me to learn that they had a bigger church. Of course, somehow it was always on the top of the hill. At noon and at six o’clock their bell rang out for Angelus. On 2SM, Norman Thomas Cardinal Gilroy intoned the prayers. There was a lot of talk about Mary, described as the “Mother of God”. All of this was alien to my beliefs.

So, at about this time, I discovered that God was Protestant. I would return home from school to tell my mother, over the ironing, what I had learned that day. About the Tigris and the Euphrates and the beginnings of civilisation. About all the gods of the ancient world. And then the birth of the notion that there was just one God. And actually, he was not English after all. He was Jewish.

My mother’s father had come to Australia from Belfast in Ulster. He was loyal to his Protestant view of the Christian religion. Prompted by my questions, my mother (somewhat reluctantly I felt) would endeavour to explain the differences between the mistaken beliefs of Roman Catholics and the highly rational approach of us Protestants who had cast superstition and ignorance out of the temple. It is hard to imagine now, but mid-century these were still times of sectarian conflict. We were still a church-going country. Overwhelmingly, the people were Protestants, like the English themselves:

We thought it ignorant to forbid priests and nuns to marry;

We thought it absurd to conduct church services in the dead language of Latin;

We regarded it as a presumption not to share the cup of the Lord at Communion with the people;

We viewed talk about Papal infallibility as scientific nonsense; and

We regarded the recently proclaimed doctrine of the Bodily Assumption of Mary as heretical.

At this stage I had not read Foxe’s Martyrs , describing how Queen Mary I had burned Cramner and hundreds of other Protestants at the stake for their beliefs. But I was convinced that God was Protestant because the simplicity, rationality and clarity of the reformed religion seemed infinitely superior to one that, sadly, appeared to have strayed from scriptural text, if not worse from commonsense so well beloved of the English.

Strange isn’t it how, in the matter of God, we like, even as children, to get into the winning team? We like to look down on those in other teams. The Roman Catholic Church might be the biggest Christian denomination in the world. But it was not so in Australia or most of the settler dominions of the British Crown. With Kipling, we in the Church of England could say: “We have the men, we have the guns, we have the money too”.

As a young boy on the brink of my teenage, I was pretty comfortable that I had the inside running in the matter of God. Things were fairly cut and dried. I used to look at the red on the map and feel mildly irritated by the little section of yellow where Thailand severed the link between Burma and Malaya. No doubt, I thought, an imperial war would, in due course, fix this up. Mr Dillon would go with the troops and, as usual, the British would win the last battle, for truly God was on our side.

Little tiny sparks of doubt were planted in my mind on Sunday nights. On my crystal set I would tune to Dr Rumble, an Anglican turned Catholic priest, explaining the error of Protestant ways. Question. Reply. The authority of Pope Pius XIIth (carried at shoulder-height on the papal throne) was painted as unquestionable. I knew nothing at that time of that Pontiff’s omission to respond wholeheartedly to the terrible plight of the Jews and other victims of the Nazis. To me he seemed a remote figure. But neither he nor Dr Rumble could really cast doubt in my belief that my religion had reached a higher form of rationality.

Even as a boy I knew that Protestant truth had given me a hotline direct to God. Ultimately, I did not need the intersession of bishops and priests. I could speak directly to God. He was always with me. There was no confession to a human being. Simply a direct dialogue with God – always there, always listening, always watching. But God was pretty distracted by so many other obligations. Rather like the British Empire, come to think of it. God did not have everyone in his fold. Probably only a quarter of humanity, like the new Queen’s dominions. The rest were heathens, communists and members of religions that did not know that belief in Jesus was absolutely essential. It was the needed password to catch God’s attention. In those days, Australians never thought about Islam. We knew that there were Hindus in India. But Buddhism and other beliefs were beyond the pale. We were sure that Roman Catholics would one day see the light and embrace the Protestant reforms. Generously, God and I accepted them as Christians, although in an earlier, more primitive, state of development. Little did I realise that the second Vatican Council was just around the corner. And that many of Martin Luther’s changes would be embraced by the blessed Pope John XXIII – a Christian leader that could be loved by us all.

For a time, I broke away from the Church of England. I attended the Wesley Methodist Church in Concord. This was no great theological conversion. God did not tell me to become more Protestant or to learn new and better hymns. It was just that Parramatta Road, ever more dangerous, stood between me and Anglicanism. We knew that the Methodists were really Anglicans with more money. But this Wesleyan interval reinforced my view that God was rational. That we humans had been given intelligence to read, think and talk about him. Nowadays, the Wesley Church in Concord is packed with Korean Australians. As in 1950, they sing Wesley’s great hymns with fervour and speed.

I returned to the fold of the Church of England at Fort Street High School. That great preacher, Dr Stuart Barton-Babbage, taught Scripture to the huge Anglican class. He presented me for confirmation at St Andrew’s Cathedral. That is where my relationship with God might have been arrested. It was a solid, competent, somewhat prideful superiority of mixed racial, cultural and religious beliefs. It was not a bad grounding for a spiritual life. But it kept God in a proper compartment. The English were never obsessively religious and neither was I. In a sense, surrounded by love at home with parents and siblings and close relatives, God was an other-worldly phenomenon of the same type of love extended universally. But then a very strange thing happened to me. I reached puberty.

HOMOSEXUALITY

When I realised that my sexual attraction was to people of the same gender, and did not change, I knew that this was not looked on as a good thing. My knowledge did not come from the Reverend Dillon. If ever he read the passage from Leviticus , I must have missed it and all the other strange injunctions appearing there. Nor did it come from my family. But at school, the occasional denunciation of “poofters” led me to know that I should treat my sexual orientation as something very, very bad. The newspapers would occasionally report on famous people entrapped by the police and tried for crimes. The Police Commissioner, Mr Delaney, was always going on about it. At first, I shed a few tears. I felt embarrassed and ashamed about myself. But I got on with my studies; kept speaking to God; and continued with life in a state of denial.

This, presumably, is what was expected of me by religious people. So far as I knew, my own Church said nothing about the subject. Perhaps that was because, in an English type of way, a former Supreme Governor, King George V, had declared: “I thought people like that shot themselves”.

But other churches were not so reticent. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declared:

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’. They are contrary to the natural law Under no circumstances can they be approved”.

The world’s Roman Catholic Bishops were later to add to their castigation even celibate homosexuals. Not just acts but beings. They were to declare that violence against them, in some circumstances, should not cause any surprise :

“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder The Church is really concerned about those who may have been tempted to believe [the] deceitful propaganda [of the pro-homosexual movement] When homosexual activity is condoned neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when irrational and violent reactions increase”.

As to relations between homosexual people in loving partnerships, this was absolutely forbidden :

“De facto unions between homosexuals are a deplorable distortion of what should be a communion of love and life between a man and a woman The bond between two men or two women cannot constitute a real family [M]aking de facto unions equivalent to the family is an evil for persons, families and societies”.

Back in my first days of discovery, such thoughts were furthest from my mind. The late Cardinal Winning of Scotland, before his death, reminded an audience of those far off days :

” [T]he threat to the Christian family is very real. I would ask you to cast your mind back to the dark days of World War II. The parallels with today are striking. In place of bombs of fifty years ago you find yourself bombarded with images, values and ideas [of an active and militant homosexual lobby] which are utterly alien”.

Not to be outdone by the Roman Church, Evangelical Christians increasingly became more noisy as I was growing up. Take this later instance from a Christian Evangelist, diverting his teaching from the loving message of Jesus of the New Covenant into language that has become sadly common in the charismatic churches :

“You don’t have to go out into the world to find homosexual devils. They’re in the Church Demon possessed, a homosexual. I know you don’t like to hear it! They don’t like me to air this But I don’t care what they like! I am not politically correct! Homosexuality is not another lifestyle. It’s a demon spirit. In the beginning God made Adam and Eve. He didn’t make Adam and Steve. [T]he devil has come in and he’s thwarted the program of God”.

It was not all that surprising that some interpreters of God from the Jewish religion should join in this denunciation. After all, the passage in Leviticus appeared in the Holy Book they had shared with other religions. A former Chief Rabbi of England, Lord Jakobovits, described an ultra-orthodox Jewish view of God’s will to the House of Lords :

“‘Gay’, ‘partner’ and ‘homophobia’ are all terms to whitewash what is morally unacceptable to the vast majority of the citizens of this country and elsewhere. We should not aid and abet this use of language. [A] tiny dissident minority of under 5 per cent – perhaps under 1 per cent – cannot demand that the other 95 per cent or 99 per cent must accept and treat as equal violations of the moral code which, after all, has distinguished civilised life for millennia [V]iolations of the laws of God cannot endure in the long run”.

It might seem strange to hear a Jewish leader talk in such percentiles. After all, the Jews had been but 2 per cent of Hitler’s Germany. But for the good Lord Rabbi, God had spoken; and that was that.

We have it on the authority of Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald that Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to the American People”, published in 2002, demands conversion of Islam. But also to putting a stop to “homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling and trading with interest”. In the holy Koran, homosexuality is linked with the biblical story of Lot and is mentioned on five occasions. Homosexuals are included amongst those who specifically incur the wrath of God. It is therefore wholly unsurprising that the Criminal Code of countries like Iran provide for the death penalty for homosexuality. Indeed, it is not so long ago that we had severe punishments in our legal system. More people were hanged in London in 1834 for homosexual offences than for murder. When I reached law school I learned of the stern punishments meted out for “the abominable crime”. For an adolescent, full of hope and spirit, these were very frightening times. Especially because you were frightened into silence about your deepest feelings even with those family members closest to you.

Do not think that these times have passed in sunny Australia in a new millennium. Violence against people for reasons of their race, gender and sexuality are daily occurrences. Youth suicide is extremely high, especially amongst boys and young men. Last week I learned of the funeral of a highly talented young man, rejected by his Italian Australian family because of his sexuality, driven to suicide. At his funeral, after all the prayers and the music, all that could be heard was muttering: “It doesn’t matter. He was just a poofter”.

GETTING THROUGH LIFE WITH GOD

So how did my relationship with God survive this experience of self-discovery?

First, I never doubted for an instant the surrounding love of my parents, my brothers and sister. I knew, in my heart, that they would always love me as I was. For years we did not confront the subject verbally. We did not really need to do so. When we did, it was exactly as I expected. No big deal. Not everyone is so lucky.

Secondly, I was greatly blessed by having many loving friends and companions, homosexual and heterosexual. Especially in finding a loving partner, Johan. He is not here tonight. He has very little time for religion and churches. He has often said to me: “I don’t understand how such an intelligent person can take seriously religions that all oppress women, people of colour and gays”. He prefers to be out there helping his Ankali. He volunteers to clean and cook and scrub the toilet-bowl for a patient living with HIV. That is his “religion”. He has utter contempt for what he calls “the Bishops in their frocks, spouting words of hate”. For thirty-five years, despite the impediments of the world, we have been together. Not everyone is blessed with such relationships. Not everyone wants them. But they are not evil or disordered – just loving, kind, loyal and mutually supportive. To deny humans such love is truly disordered, unnatural, some may even say evil.

Thirdly, I was lucky with the timing of my life. My life has coincided with the great advance of science in the study of human sexuality. At the same time as Commissioner Delaney and the odd Bishop or two were having their say, the press in Australia was bringing reports of the research of Alfred Kinsey and all of his successors who researched human sexual diversity. We were living through a great age of science. We knew we were in the atomic era. We saw Sputnik in the sky. We witnessed the advent of jumbo-jets, the computer, the human genome. We knew that the churches had modified their beliefs about the Creation story following Darwin’s revelations. My generation had complete confidence that science would reveal more truths. One of them concerned a minority of human beings with a sexual attraction to their own sex. We knew that if this reality existed everywhere in nature it could not be “evil”. It had a purpose. Ultimately, as in the past, the most Sacred Scriptures would need to be re-examined. New interpretations would need to be found. Lawyers know that this has to be done all the time with ancient words. New generations see the words in a new light.

Truth is a tremendous weapon. It is the truth that sets us free. First, a small group, then more, and eventually most citizens came to know the truth that some people are homosexual. To deny them love and companionship is just plain cruel. To deny them equality as citizens is unjust. To punish them for private adult conduct is oppressive. I was fortunate to live through a time when these truths became gradually, increasingly and overwhelmingly accepted in Australia and other civilised countries. Remnants of the old disordered view linger on, including in God’s churches. Doubtless in some places they will last longer than others. But in the end, scientific truth will prevail.

Fourthly, I was greatly strengthened in my approach to these issues by my religious upbringing. The Anglican Church in Sydney its has faults. As we all have. But it is part of a denomination that grew out of the Elizabethan settlement in England. After the terrors against Catholics of Edward VI and against Protestants of Mary I, it was imperative to establish a Church of many mansions. Thus, in Sydney to this day, we have the Cathedral, the Church of St James and Christ Church St Lawrence. They represent the low, middle and high church traditions. There is always a space for diverse opinions.

It is not, I think, coincidental that it is the Anglican Communion that has witnessed not only the worldwide move to the ordination of women (an absurd exclusion from the ministry of God). But also the ordination of openly homosexual priests and the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson as elected Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. The Uniting Church in Australia has also played a part in this gradual movement. So have other religious groups. It will not happen overnight. There will be storms ahead. With Osama bin Laden as an enemy, we cannot be entirely relaxed and comfortable. But out of the essential diversity of these temperate beliefs, committed to rationality, has come gradual progress towards enlightenment. Eventually, if our species survives, rationality will embrace all religions everywhere. Rationality, truth and science must be the modern companions of spiritual belief. They cannot be the enemies for, if they are, science will trump religion every time.

Fifthly, I have never been cut off from God. Never in the darkest days of secrets, fear and alienation have I felt removed from the loving presence of God. Not for an instant did I feel cast out of the temple. It may be a presumption, but I never felt myself “intrinsically evil”. I never felt guilty of “grave depravity”. Never. I knew that this was just the way that God and nature meant me to be. It had a purpose. Perhaps it can be seen tonight. We are not at the movies. Johan is out there cleaning a toilet-bowl. I am here speaking with you.

To be brought up in a spiritual belief with a personal God is a mighty comfort. It helps you get through the problems of life. God was with me in bereavement and in moments of pain and of success. To be brought up in a Church of Jesus is specially comforting for minorities. As Bishop Spong said from this pulpit, Jesus was actually a revolutionary. The universality of his church was a new message for religion to that time. His instruction to love one another, to forgive enemies and to seek reconciliation is one specially relevant to the dangerous contemporary world. His New Covenant undoubtedly extends to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, intersex and all queer minorities. In fact, it extends to everyone. But many in the world, including many still in error in his Church, are not listening.

To those who think that God has been superseded, indeed replaced, by science, I commend the program Testing God recently shown on the ABC Compass series on Sunday nights. The first program reviewed the question whether science had killed the Creator. The second, the impact of Darwin on the divine. Of course, these programs reveal that many scientists reject theology. The need to postulate a God is less pressing to them now we know more and more about how the universe and matter first came into existence, evolved and are still evolving and decaying.

Yet there are other great scientific minds who think that God is not just a human invention. They ask the deepest questions of life and death. How and why did the Big Bang happen in the first place? What (or who) caused it to bang? What (or who), if anyone, was there before the bang? Are we alone as sentient, intelligent beings in the Universe of such enormity? Why do we have this relatively brief existence? Why is there such human evil in the world? Why are people – including so many people of religion – so cruel to each other?

Thinking about God in the current age, cannot be divorced from scientific knowledge. Staring at the endless universe, looking at the twinkling stars and pondering the infinitesimally tiny atom of matter or the gene that makes us up, helps to put issues of religion in true perspective.

My notion of God has little if anything to do with Osama bin Laden’s opinions. Nor, for that matter, with those of Cardinal Winning, Rabbi Lord Jakobovits or others of like opinion. Their anthropomorphic, contorted, nasty little view of God is totally incompatible with my notion of the enormity of God’s presence, as the universal being. It is humans that stamp on God their own petty conceptions. It is humans that try to reduce God to their own paltry and often mean imagination. The notion of God as a bearded prophet or as an Englishman or as a Protestant or Catholic or as an Islamic, Hindu or other human possession is, frankly, absurd. But the notion that around us, “immortal, invisible and divine” is a loving God is one that millions of humans cling to and believe in. It is a notion that is not incompatible with science. It is unproved. But it still exists.

Certainly, that notion is incompatible with cruelty and unkindness to one another. There has been altogether too much of this in the name of God. For centuries people of all religions just accepted a contemptible, little view of God. But now, in our age, a new and larger vision is emerging. As this vision gains strength, many of the human cruelties of the past will be seen for what they were. Then Jesus’ injunction to “love one another” will take on a new meaning. The trivial doctrines will be discarded. We will all be closer to God, not just to some creation that humans have fashioned in the image of our own prejudices and selfish conceptions.

I honour those in all churches ad faiths who reach out in love and inclusiveness to all people. Tonight I specially honour those who reach out to sexual minorities. Those minorities have been cruelly and wrongly abused in the name of God and often still are. In the millennial year 2000, the Pope prayed: “Let us ask pardon for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitude sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions”. To that prayer, I would say Amen. But I would add “Let us ask pardon for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards women, towards people who are different from ourselves and towards sexual minorities” who are a full part of God’s creation. That prayer will come one day. Of that there can be no doubt. And when it comes, let us all be ready to say, Amen.

Michael Kirby is a Justice of the High Court. This is the full text of an address given to the Pitt Street Uniting Church last week.

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Decided I needed a Long Weekend so Took the Day Off

It was Monday morning and I woke early enough to get up and go to work, but then I contemplated the day and remembered that the new Director of the Department was making a grand tour of our building this morning to meet and greet the workers. I did not feel like seeing all the managers do their usual cringe and kowtow routine (he’s one of the current Education Minister’s camp followers – has followed him from Dept to Dept) and as I had sufficient time credits decided to give work a miss. Rang my manager to tell him I wouldn’t be in and went out to see a movie, The Girl With A Pearl Earring.

I liked the movie. I liked its depiction of the household and the characters that belong to the household. Colin Firth may have been doing his usual brooding, leading man performance as Vermeer that he has used since he did Darcy in P&P but I did admire the work of Scarlett Johansson as Griet, and that of Essie Davis, the actor who played Vermeer’s wife, Catherina. Scarlett Johannson did not have many lines, but her face is so expressive it is hardly necessary and as a maid servant in the 17th Century she probably didn’t have much of an opportunity to express her opinions or thoughts to her social superiors anyway. This actor would have been perfect in the ’20’s in the silent movie industry. The last shot of the actual portrait and you notice the look in that girl’s eyes, one of questioning, pain, defiance? I must go read the book.

On Saturday went to one of the day courses I’ve booked in the Autumn Semester. It was quite interesting. It was an exposition from a philosophical perspective of Miracles and Religious Experience. The lecturer stressed the difference at the very beginning between Religious Studies and the Philosophy of Religion. I think he was attempting to head off at the pass those who attend these lectures to give us a dissertation on the bible. To try to get them to see the difference between the active involved mind-set and the faith based arguments of Religious Studies and the more contemplative methods of The Philosophy of Religion. To explain that it was at one remove and more contemplative and involved in questioning the a priori premises that those involved in a religion have already accepted on the basis of faith. Of course it didn’t work. The guy who turned up on the lecture on the debate between the Church and Science on the Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory spent most of his time harrassing the poor guy to explain to us why Hume was wrong. Like Darwin, Hume obviously got up this guy’s nose as he dared to raise questions about his beliefs and he did not like it.

Well, ignoring the religious ranter it was interesting to hear the theories of Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and their philosophical approach to the subject of miracles and religious experience. Not much light was shed, I hardly expected it to be so, but it was fascinating hearing the different viewpoints and approaches to these subjects. I’ll probably going to see Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of THe Christ” but am not looking forward to it. Have heard it is extremely violent, but I’ve already signed up to a course which discusses the film, so I have to go and see it. Pity they didn’t re-release “The Life of Brian” here at the same time as an antidote, like they did in NYC.

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Decided I needed a Long Weekend so Took the Day Off

It was Monday morning and I woke early enough to get up and go to work, but then I contemplated the day and remembered that the new Director of the Department was making a grand tour of our building this morning to meet and greet the workers. I did not feel like seeing all the managers do their usual cringe and kowtow routine (he’s one of the current Education Minister’s camp followers – has followed him from Dept to Dept) and as I had sufficient time credits decided to give work a miss. Rang my manager to tell him I wouldn’t be in and went out to see a movie, The Girl With A Pearl Earring.

I liked the movie. I liked its depiction of the household and the characters that belong to the household. Colin Firth may have been doing his usual brooding, leading man performance as Vermeer that he has used since he did Darcy in P&P but I did admire the work of Scarlett Johansson as Griet, and that of Essie Davis, the actor who played Vermeer’s wife, Catherina. Scarlett Johannson did not have many lines, but her face is so expressive it is hardly necessary and as a maid servant in the 17th Century she probably didn’t have much of an opportunity to express her opinions or thoughts to her social superiors anyway. This actor would have been perfect in the ’20’s in the silent movie industry. The last shot of the actual portrait and you notice the look in that girl’s eyes, one of questioning, pain, defiance? I must go read the book.

On Saturday went to one of the day courses I’ve booked in the Autumn Semester. It was quite interesting. It was an exposition from a philosophical perspective of Miracles and Religious Experience. The lecturer stressed the difference at the very beginning between Religious Studies and the Philosophy of Religion. I think he was attempting to head off at the pass those who attend these lectures to give us a dissertation on the bible. To try to get them to see the difference between the active involved mind-set and the faith based arguments of Religious Studies and the more contemplative methods of The Philosophy of Religion. To explain that it was at one remove and more contemplative and involved in questioning the a priori premises that those involved in a religion have already accepted on the basis of faith. Of course it didn’t work. The guy who turned up on the lecture on the debate between the Church and Science on the Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory spent most of his time harrassing the poor guy to explain to us why Hume was wrong. Like Darwin, Hume obviously got up this guy’s nose as he dared to raise questions about his beliefs and he did not like it.

Well, ignoring the religious ranter it was interesting to hear the theories of Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and their philosophical approach to the subject of miracles and religious experience. Not much light was shed, I hardly expected it to be so, but it was fascinating hearing the different viewpoints and approaches to these subjects. I’ll probably going to see Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of THe Christ” but am not looking forward to it. Have heard it is extremely violent, but I’ve already signed up to a course which discusses the film, so I have to go and see it. Pity they didn’t re-release “The Life of Brian” here at the same time as an antidote, like they did in NYC.

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Protected: A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 2

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A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 2

Title:A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 2 Characters: Stephen, Jack, Diana, Killick, Mr Harding, Awkward Davies, Amos Jacob, Mr Wells, En Ramon d’Ullastret Casademon Rating: NC-17 Spoilers for The Surgeon’s Mate Disclaimer: Characters borrowed from Patrick O’Brian & his heirs on a non-profit basis A Friendship Dissected Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 2 The wind was now driving the rain in almost horizontal sheets across the deck, when Jack stepped onto the quarterdeck. He yelled into the First Lieutenant’s ear over the shrieking of the wind, “Mr Harding how much water under us now? Does Mr Whewell advise to steer a course for the centre of the strait for deeper water or maintain our course closer to the southern shore? We could always moor in one of the more sheltered inlets.” “Ten fathoms sir. Go for the centre of the channel, this southern shore is still poorly charted. It’s better to be clear of any potential hazard, sir. The wind maybe stronger out there but when it swings back to the west it will blow us straight out into the Atlantic and we should make up some time, sir.” “Make it so Mr Harding.” Jack looked to starboard toward the southern shore or where it would be if he could see it, through the rain and sleet. It certainly did remind him of the wilder and colder days and nights in the Baltic and North Seas, and latter in The Channel on The Ariel. ‘All I can remember from that time is fear, fear for Stephen and a degree of frustration with my life. First, fear of Diana and what she would do to Stephen’s heart. He did not seem so much under the spell of her beauty as he had in the past, but there was still that grim determination on his part to marry her. They seemed to be enjoying each other’s company at that ball in Halifax. Maybe the sight of them together, smiling and enjoying each other’s company induced me to indulge in that foolishness with Miss Amanda Smith. I think I was jealous of Diana and since I had recovered I was finding it hard to control my desire for Stephen. He spent most of his time with her and there was a hidden reserve between us, a reserve I could not overcome. Could not approach him, through some sense of pride, to ask him to let me touch him, let me love him? Was I afraid he would say no, that he would not, now that he intended to marry Diana? That and my disappointment at not receiving any letters from Sophie and a misguided sense of neglect, wounded pride that she did not think enough of me to write to me. What a fool I was to end up in that woman’s bed. I left Halifax with a sense of relief, hoping never to see or hear from that foolish woman again.’ ‘When I got home, things weren’t really any better. My children did not even know who I was. The girls didn’t remember me and I could hardly have expected George to remember, but nevertheless it was painful and awkward with them at times, in those first few days of my return. Sophie was glad to see me home and was willing to invite me to her bed in the first week or so, but it didn’t take long for her to cool to me and Stephen had wandered off again, first to London and then back to Diana in Portsmouth and then across to Paris with Diana. I didn’t like it that he had gone there. I remembered what happened at Mahon and felt the protection offered him, as a member of the Royal Society would be pretty flimsy if someone suspected him of being a spy. Then the letters started arriving from Miss Smith, those seemingly silly gushes of fatuousness, but always with a hard edge, always a demand for money. These forced me to fear the arrival of the post everyday, hurrying to the door to collect the post, to ensure none of the incriminating letters would reach Sophie. This was on top of the financial worries caused by my foolish behaviour in trusting that damned Kimber, damned projector, a vulture and parasite who was trying to suck me dry. Then Stephen came and as always he saved me, extracted me from the consequences of my foolishness, offering me the possibility of a temporary command of a ship. A godsend, in my troubles at that time and with relief I accompanied him to London. I know it is a thought that comes frequently, all too frequently, but he is my lucky charm. When I’m up to my neck in bilge, he comes along and pulls me out.’ ‘It wasn’t till I was on board the Ariel and the first bout of gunnery practice when I started to feel happy, the cares of the land were quickly washed away with the waves. It was a good ship and a good crew, but there was still one source of fear and my continuing frustration. I had Stephen’s cot slung in the cabin with me, but I did not ask, could not ask him, though there were times he returned my questioning gaze and I wanted to go up and kiss him, but I didn’t. There really wasn’t any possibility with Jagiello in and out of the cabin, all the time before we reached our destination. The fear for Stephen sharpened and grew more solid after our interview with the Admiral. Would he end up like poor Ponsich? I was anxious and am sure I annoyed the men with my repeated orders about maintaining the pretence that the Minnie was still an allied ship, a Danish supply ship. That last meal before he joined the Minnie and sailed into danger, into the bay of Grimsholm, under those deadly cannon I felt sick, my stomach was closed by my fear for him. He, on the other hand, downed his omelette, his steak and a great slice of goose pie and some ham. But was that surprising, I know just before I go into action I too eat heartily. He was not so different from me. I could have cried when he said he wished we might have some music and how he missed it. At that point, all the reserve was gone and I knew I could have asked anything of him, he would have come to my cot, but too late he had to board the Minnie and sail into danger. I attempted to toast him, wishing my dear love to him and longing to kiss him, I dropped my glass, such an unlucky omen. I was appalled but he didn’t let me think on it but filled the intervening awkwardness with last minute instructions and before leaving, quickly kissed my cheek blessing me.’ ‘I stayed up on the tops for the last critical part of the mission, my glass focussed on him, my only interest. I cared nothing for the men on shore; all I needed was to watch him, needed to see him safely on shore. He plunged between the boat and the jetty, my heart stopped but they hauled him out and then something happened I could not work out. Stephen looked up and saw someone and a beautiful smile appeared on his face and he called to him and ran towards an older man and embraced him with real joy. Who was this man that Stephen held with such warmth? Warmth that was returned as far as I could see and it encouraged me somewhat, but it wasn’t till I saw the Catalan flag flying from that flagpole the next morning that I could leave my vigil. My heart now relieved and joyful and longing now to recover Stephen from the shore as quickly as possible.’ “More frustration, alas, Stephen’s godfather, Colonel D’Ullastret, I’m sure a charming man in his way was installed with us in the great cabin and as senior officer it was up to me to entertain him and of course I had no time alone with Stephen. Stephen had deserted me for the company of his fellow Catalans on the transport ships and I was left alone to entertain the Colonel with my limited French and his strange French, I could barely understand. It was an exercise in mutual incomprehension. I nodded my head in what I thought were the right places and made some little comment in French as he continued his monologue. He had a lot to say.’ ‘The only thing that I remembered of all the things he said to me, was when he told me in broken English, “Capitán Aubrey I am happy, my son, Esteve has a friend, special friend, hero. Be happy, keep him safe.” Was that a blessing? Did he see something that the others did not see? I did not know and all I could do was nod and promise him, “I love my friend, Stephen very much and will always try to keep him safe sir, make him happy.” He smiled and patted my arm and went to his hammock in the dining cabin as Stephen entered the cabin. The next morning Stephen set my heart racing with fear, with his tomfoolery in the crosstrees. I thought he would go plunging to the deck when he leapt up and down. He did fall but I managed to grab him in time and held him close and moved to settle him on the crosstrees. I eventually had him and Jagiello lowered to the deck attached to a whip.’ ‘Then that time in the Temple, that fear for Stephen rose again dark and overwhelming me utterly. At other times, on board ship I had things to distract me from my fear but now I was stuck in a cell and all I could do was worry and imagine them torturing him. I felt nauseated, sick and Jagiello tried to encourage me, but sank into silence when he saw how miserable I was, how much I longed to see Stephen. The door opened and I ran to him and clasped Stephen to me, my heart beating ten to the dozen. Relief washing over me as I pulled away from him, to look at him, check that there were no wounds, no signs of torture. Stephen just smiled and reassured me and I pulled him close again, kissing him and begging him to come to me that night.’ Jack smiled and thought of that night and felt warmth creep through his body as his memories aroused him, remembering the urgency, the sheer pleasure of stripping him, quickly in the dark and taking Stephen almost brutally, sating my lust fast and hard. Jack looked up quickly when he heard a rending sound and roared to the men to haul in what remained of the foresail, the wind blew harder and a wave swept over the starboard side, soaking him. Instantly dousing the warmth that was coursing through his body and his arousal. “Mr Whewell do you think the wind will increase?” Whewell looked at the sky to the south and west and at the few sails still set and the water, pondered and said, “No sir, it looks like it will move to the west and decrease sir.” “Good, Mr Harding I’ll be going below, call me if there is a problem.” Jack nodded and left the quarterdeck. He had just settled at his desk when Mr Harding came down to report. “Is there a problem Mr Harding?” “Two men overboard sir, Simons and Turner, sir. When the foresail blew out the men must have fallen sir.” “They’ve been recovered?” Jack frowned and leant forward in his seat, getting up to recover his just discarded sou’ wester. “No sir, we couldn’t. I don’t know how the other men missed it, but they did and they had disappeared before the man overboard call was made sir. We have put a cutter over the side and they are attempting to row back to see if they can sight them, but with this low visibility I don’t hold much hope. The water being so cold will get them before we can locate them sir.” Jack raced back up to the deck to the taff-rail and roared against the wind, to the men in the cutter, “Can you see either of them?” “No sir,” Awkward Davies voice boomed back. “They must have sunk straight down, sir. Shall we keep on searching sir?” Jack looked at Whewell and Harding and Whewell shook his head and Harding merely shrugged. Jack looked down and then called back, “No Davies, bring the cutter back.” His face darkened. Jack hated losing men. He did not have much time for one of them, but still it was bad. If he had been more observant on deck, he might have had the foresail hauled in earlier and the accident might not have happened. He nodded to the others gathered on the quarterdeck and went below. He sat staring at the log for a long while after making the entry, recording the reason for the men’s disappearances and presumed deaths and the approximate time that it happened. Another two letters of condolence to write to their wives and families, if they had any. Lord how he hated writing them. Everyone was like an admission of failure, his failure. Jack took every one of his men’s deaths personally, even men like Simons who was a rather odious creature. He sat there for a while, his head down, puzzling how the men could have taken so long to notice they were missing or not seen them drop at all. He knew Simons was not popular with the other men and Turner his tie-mate only slightly more popular, but he didn’t think they would deliberately let them perish in the sea like that. They must have been distracted hauling in the sail, somehow. ‘What do you write in a condolence letter about a man you didn’t like very much.’ He wondered. Jack did not like Simons, he had warned him off when he had been told by one of the other midshipman of his untoward advances to young Mr Wells. He would have no man abuse a child on his ship, a child whose safety was his personal responsibility. He remembered the look Simons gave him when he reproached him and yes that half-veiled threat, what was it? That’s it; he implied something about Stephen and himself, what we got up to in the cabin. Yes an unpleasant man and Turner, not so objectionable, but the only man on board who seemed to be able to put up with him. Jack felt uneasy now. He couldn’t prove the men would deliberately have ignored their fall or may have helped them fall and asking questions would only stir trouble. Trouble he didn’t need, for men he didn’t care for much. “I’ll talk to Stephen about this, this evening.” His face darkened, not wanting to spoil their evening with something so horrible. Yes he would speak to Stephen ask him for his advice. I’ll talk to Mr Harding first though. “Killick, Killick could you bring some coffee to the cabin and ask if Mr Harding would come and see me.” Jack called. Mr Harding arrived looking stiff and uncomfortable. “Sit down, sit down Mr Harding. Do you want some coffee?” “Yes sir, thank you sir,” Harding said and stared at Jack, unwilling to say more, unless Jack questioned him. “Mr Harding I have some worries concerning the disappearance of the two men. There seems from the description you’ve given and a few of the things I heard on deck that there was a fairly long time between their falling and a call going out. A length of time, that may not have been considered suspicious if the men concerned were more popular. They all could have been distracted when the foresail blew out, but it seems unlikely still that they could have missed two men falling. Do you have any theories that may explain the situation?” Mr Harding looked up, his face troubled. “I cannot say for sure. There were some mutterings against Simons for some off-colour remarks made at dinner. I gather they roundly abused him and some told him to stow his opinions. One of them threatened him that if he didn’t shut his gob and stop speaking out of turn, one of them would make sure he did.” “Do you know who that man was?” Jack asked. “No sir, it was reported to me earlier in the afternoon by one of the midshipman sir. He could not or would not divulge the names and as there was no true violence offered, no offence occurred so I couldn’t insist, sir.” Harding answered woodenly. “Do you know what these remarks were?” Jack asked his voice now tight with anger. “No sir,” Harding looked down at the table and up at Killick who had come in with the coffee, his face gloomy and hangdog but he had a sharp look in his eye and it was directed at Harding. Jack looked between the two of them and back at Harding and knew he would get nothing more. If they knew what Simons said they weren’t going to tell him and he certainly wasn’t going to get any names. “Thank you, Mr Harding. Killick pour the coffee, please. I’ll made the entry recording them lost overboard. I don’t believe there will be any questions asked, the weather and the circumstances at the time point to it being an unfortunate accident.” Jack looked up at Harding again, but met a blank stare. He dropped the matter and turned to their current position, “Our current position, can Mr Whewell determine it with any accuracy. Will we be in the Atlantic by this evening?” Mr Harding’s face cleared and he smiled, nodding, “Most definitely sir! The wind’s backing into the west and we’ll be into the Atlantic probably by two bells in the first watch, sir.” “Good, I will want the ship to undergo a minor refit, sails and yards and any more troublesome problems with the hull in Buenos Aires before you return to England. Over the next few weeks I want you to consult with the bosun about his requirements and see the carpenter and his mate about any problems that need to be resolved. I want the ship in good trim before she leaves Buenos Aires. What is your current opinion of the men we have on board at the moment, how many do you think will want to sign on again?” While Jack sat with Harding in the cabin, down in the orlop, Stephen sat at his desk, clad only in his drawers and socks, dissecting an octopus. He was interested in the bright, blue concentric rings and the sharp almost fang-like protrusions at the tips of the tentacles. Could they be fangs? Can an octopus be venomous? “Amos, Amos are you there?” Stephen called. “Yes Esteban, I’ll be there in a minute.” Amos called back. “There Mr Davies keep the bandage on the arm for a few days and come and have it changed then.” Dr Jacob finished wrapping the bandage around Awkward Davies upper left arm. “Where did you get such a gash and such bruising?” “The foresail blew out and I got struck with a marline spike sir and banged against the mast sir.” Davies looked away nervously. “Can I go now sir?” “Yes, yes, don’t forget to come and see me or Dr Maturin in a few days.” Amos called after him. “Stephen what was it you wanted?” He smiled at him as he entered the little cabin beside the sick berth where Stephen kept his laudanum supplies and his books and bottles containing his specimens covered in the best spirits of wine and cages with the animals that Stephen had collected for dissection. “Look what do you think that these protrusions on the end of this octopus’ tentacles are for? See I have opened one of the tentacles. Here is a minute sac, perhaps a venom sac. Do you see the drop of milky-white fluid that is pumped through this fine tube to the end of the sharp protuberance? What do you think? Do you think this creature kills with venom, like a snake?” Stephen enquired. “It could be. Perhaps you should test to see if it is venom? Get one of the midshipman to catch a rat for you and inject the fluid into the rat?” Suggested Amos and then laughed. “Esteban why are you sitting here in your drawers?” “Oh well since my bath this morning I have been careful not to get my clothes dirtied. I was hoping to preserve their cleanliness for at least a day. Killick does carp so about my clothes being soiled with blood or other fluids when I dissect a specimen or operate on a crewman.” Stephen looked down slightly embarrassed at the moral ascendancy that Killick had attained over him. “What were you doing? Has anyone been hurt?” “Just Awkward Davies, a bad gash to his arm and some bruising on his shoulders, back and chest. It looked like he had been fighting, but he says he got it from being banged against the foremast.” Amos shrugged, clearly uninterested as to whether Davies had told him the truth or not. “Perhaps, sometimes one sees an odd pattern of bruising or damage on the men aloft in a storm,” Stephen shrugged also, his eyes now drawn back to the object he was dissecting. “Amos could you go and see young Mr Wells and see if he can catch that rat for me?” “Of course, Esteban.” Amos smiled seeing his friend now totally absorbed again in the delicate task of separating the individual components of the octopus’ tentacle. “Hello sir, here is your rat, sir? What are you going to do with it sir?” Mr Wells stood at the door, holding a rat by its tail and looking in at the table with the light of the lamp directed at the octopus pinned onto the dissection board. He like watching the Doctor cut up his beasts. It was always interesting when he cut them into separate pieces, the muscles, the bones, blood vessels and the other parts and he was always happy to explain how the things worked in the body. “Well Mr Wells, you see this octopus that you so kindly captured for me. I think he has fangs at the tip of his tentacles, do you see? Well I am going to inject the rat with one of these fangs and squeeze the little sac. Do you see it here?” He used the tip of his scalpel to raise the tiny sac a little. Once it injects the fluid into the rat I will see its effects. Come now, place the rat here,” he pointed at the edge of the dissecting board and picked up the tentacle. “Hold the rat firmly Mr Wells, so I can inject him properly.” Stephen plunged the sharp protuberance into the rat’s neck and squeezed the sac with a small pair of tweezers. The rat jerked once and then collapsed and twitched violently for a few seconds, his mouth foaming and was dead within a minute. Mr Wells’ eyes rounded in shock, “Oh sir, it must be very powerful poison sir?” “Indeed Mr Wells, you are quite lucky he did not manage to inject his little fangs into you. You would be very dead by now, if he did. Thank you for your assistance in my little experiment. Please leave the rat. He is certainly not edible now. I wish to dissect him to see the effect of the venom.” A slight trickle of blood flowed from the rat’s snout. “May I watch sir?” Mr Wells leaned forward eagerly. “My word Mr Wells you are a little ghoul. Here, while I put the octopus back in his jar and douse him in spirits, pin the rat to the board and I will begin the dissection.” Stephen ordered. “Mind your shirt now.” The rat was pinned and Stephen picked up the scalpel, inserted its tip and opened the rat’s body cavity. There was a gush of blood all over the board as he opened the rat, Mr Wells stepping back quickly from the board to avoid it. “Interesting Mr Wells, the venom seems to have caused massive internal bleeding. If I open the skull, we may also see the effect there. The spastic movements before death, may be due to the deprivation of blood to the muscles or the poison may have an effect on the nerves?” Mr Hanson stopped at the doorway, “There you are Wells. Mr Whewell is looking for you. What are you doing?” “He is helping me with a little experiment and a dissection, but if Mr Whewell requires you on deck, you must run along now Mr Wells. Hurry now.” Stephen’s gaze dropped to the rat again. Mr Hanson looked at the rat and wrinkled his nose. “Why were you cutting up the rat sir?” Stephen looked up at him and smiled, “To see the effect of the poison that I injected into him.” “Oh, yes sir.” Mr Hanson looked at Stephen and shook his head and followed Wells. After he completed his dissection, Stephen stood up and stretched his arms and extended his fingers, stretching the tendons, looking quietly content, and said to himself, “Most satisfactory. I’ll shall have to write this up. I wonder if Reverend Jenkins, at the institute would be interested in this? I know he is interested in all forms of mollusca. I must write to him.” He went into the sick berth, calling, “Poll, Poll can I have some water to wash?” “Dr Maturin what are you doing wandering around in your drawers, sir?” “I’m sorry I forgot I’d taken my other clothes off before I started dissecting.” Stephen blushed. “It’s all right, sir. Nothing I haven’t seen before. I’ll get your water, won’t be a minute sir.” Stephen walked over to the one patient they had in the sick berth and enquired, “Stimpson how are you feeling today? Is your chest feeling easier?” “Yes sir, much better sir. I will be back on deck soon, sir what with Turner and Simons lost.” “Lost, what do you mean?” Stephen asked. “Fell from the foremast sir, into the water. Their bodies swept away in the storm. No great loss, that Simons was a rotten bugger sir. Always looking odd at the…” Stimpson fell silent as he sighted one of his mess mates come to sit with him. “How unfortunate. Mr Sefton, good afternoon. Ah, Poll thank you. Could you put the basin in my cabin, I’ll wash and dress there.” Stephen followed her into his cabin. Poll shook her head and left the cabin and in a few minutes was back with a scrub brush and a bucket of water. She removed the rat from the board and began scrubbing his dissection board clean, “Sir, you should clean up when you have finished. What do you want to do with the rat?” “Throw it overboard. It’s full of a deadly poison. Dispose of it straight away Poll.” Stephen turned as he dried his hands and arms and reached for his breeches. Once dressed he searched his bookshelves to find the volume he wanted and went to the hammock slung there and settled into it, opening the book to the chapter on molluscs and began a search for a description of an octopus similar to his specimen. After a little while, Stephen gave up looking and smiled, thinking of Mr Wells and wondering if he looked so young and eager when En Ramon taught him to hunt, taught him to appreciate the beauty of this world. “Padri, how I miss you.” Stephen sighed. The last time he saw him was on the Ariel after they had been run aground on the coast of Brittany. Stephen smiled again thinking, ‘I don’t think Jack saw the best of En Ramon.’ He thought of En Ramon, as he knew him in his childhood. ‘He was my hero then, a strong, vital man. A true guerrillero fighting for Catalan independence. He gave me a precious gift; he helped me see the beauty of nature. He may have been a hunter, but am I not the same? I do not seek the kill for the meat or the challenge of the hunt, but I do seek my prey, so I can capture them, study them and dissect them. He unwittingly gave me my love for nature, quite different than his own, but just as true. No Jack did not see the best of him. For as the chance of Catalan independence faded, so did my padri’s heroic stature. He had no victories to celebrate, to feed his need for military success and when they did not come he concentrated on the inconsequential things, like the finery of his uniform or his stickling for precedence to hide from himself his failures. But did I make it worse, by my blathering about Jack to him on Grimsholm? Perhaps he thought that in my obvious display of hero worship for Jack, I compared him to Jack and found him wanting. That could never be true. I loved him for his courage, his sense of honour, his generosity and the unvarying love and kindness he showered me with in my childhood.’ I attempted to leap from the boat to the jetty and missed sinking into the cold water and when I reached the surface cursed in Catalan, “Pull me out. Hell and death.” “Art a Catalan?’ cried one of them. “Mother of God, of course I am,” I fumed. “Pull me out.” The bonehead of a man just stared at me and said, “I am amazed.” His subordinates were quicker, dropped their weapons and came and pulled me up onto the jetty. “Thank you, friends,” I turned around searching for En Ramon. I was surrounded by men asking where I was from, what I was doing here and news of Barcelona, Lleida, Palamos, Ripoll and did I bring any wine or tobacco? I asked, “Now, tell me, where is Colonel d’Ullastret?” “He wants the Colonel, can’t he see him?” They pointed and I saw his small, sprightly figure and I cried, “Padri!” and ran up the hill towards him. He raised his arms and called, “Esteve!” En Ramon embraced me when we met, patting my back. “What a joy to see you my son? What are you doing here? I had heard that you worked for the English?” “I do, Padri, I do. I am a surgeon in the Royal Navy. The ship out there, the Ariel I came with her captain, Jack Aubrey. I have come to talk to you, to tell you about the evil deception Buonaparte has played upon you and all these true Catalan patriots. Please let me talk to you about this. Let me show you the papers I carry.” I scrabbled at my chest to get the important papers, wrapped in sailcloth. “The Minnie has brought tobacco and wine for the men.” “Come Esteve, we will eat and drink and smoke and you will tell me your message. I promise nothing but that I will listen to you. You are the only one I would trust. Come my son. You are thin, your hands, what has happened to your hands? You walk stiffly, almost as stiffly as me, an old man. Are you sick?” “No, Padri I was tortured by the French military. The torture damaged my hands and the muscles in my arms and legs. I have recovered but there is still some pain and stiffness occasionally. It happened quite a few years ago now. I’m quite well.” He embraced me again, “I knew they were cruel bastards, as bad as the Castellanos,” and he urged me up the slope to the house. After a meal like that I remember from home, I was comfortably ensconced in an armchair beside En Ramon and we were smoking our cigars. I reached for my papers and undid the wrapping and passed them to him, “Look Padri, see how the vile man, Buonaparte has deceived you and your men.” He slumped lower in his chair as he read and he realised the lies he had been told by the French to keep him and his men in this miserable, cold and barren island, doing their bidding. But this was too much, he could not accept that they had played him for a fool and he looked up at me and said, “How do I know these are not forgeries? Not printed to persuade me?” I looked back at him, “Do you believe that I would lie to you, to my padri?” “No, my son, no. What would you have me do?” He looked much older, now slumped back into his chair, his previous gaiety snuffed out as he contemplated yet another failure. My heart ached for him. “Padri, you have a choice now. As you can see Wellington is in Spain, if you went back to Catalunya and fought by his side, perhaps there is a chance that when Buonaparte is defeated, the British can prevail on Spain to grant independence. I cannot promise anything definite, but if they see that they would have willing and faithful allies in Catalunya they would help us. I would see you gain honour still fighting for our country. You cannot do that here; you can only do that at home. A Catalan regiment fighting beside Wellington just like your grandfather fought with Lord Peterborough.” I pleaded with him. “Jack, my Captain has the Ariel he will transport you and me to meet Admiral Saumarez, the Admiral of the Baltic Squadron. He will show you the greatest respect and gratitude I assure you. There are transports out there that can take the men home, as soon as you have seen the Admiral. They will be treated with all the honour due to respected allies and fellow combatants. Will you come with me? The Captain will land a small group of British artillerymen to take over the positions and hold them until they can be reinforced from the squadron.” He smiled and patted my hand and nodded. “I will make the arrangements.” “Thank you padri, thank you.” “Now my son, tell me about this Captain of yours. Every time you say his name your eyes shine. Is he a great friend of yours?” “Oh yes padri. I have know him since the year 1800 when I joined his ship in Port Mahon. He is my particular friend. We have shared many adventures. He is a true warrior, a man you would admire padri. I know you would. He is courageous. Did you not hear of the Captain who sailed a small brig and captured the Cacafuego? It was Jack. He has fought in many naval battles, with distinction. He fought at the Nile with Nelson. But he is superb at cutting out expeditions, darting into a port with dash and verve and stealing or blowing up the enemy’s ships. He is a nautical guerrillero, just like you on land. He is a master tactician in battle and as well as a brilliant navigator and has magnificent skills in handling and training crews into well honed fighting units. He knows so much about the technicalities of sailing a ship; I do not know where to start. I rarely remember many of the arcane jargon they use, so cannot explain it to you, but he certainly is the most skilful Captain I have met in this regard. Not only that he is a man of science. Jack has presented a paper at the Royal Institute. He is generous and kind and a very loving friend to me. He has saved my life and comforted and cared for me, many a time. He truly is the man who I have loved the most in my life. Oh I’m sorry of course I love my padri, how could I not? Forgive me for going on, but I do want you to like him and he to like you.” “My son how could I not, when you obviously love and value him so. Come now, you must speak to my commanders, must tell them what you told me. I don’t think it will take much to persuade them, they are heartily sick of the French and this cold, barren rock and long for home and their women. There is much work to do before morning.” It was a long night, but it was a very sweet victory over Buonaparte. I had succeeded via diplomacy with the obvious advantages of love and kinship where a squadron bristling with weaponry may have failed, with a horrible slaughter. I handed the British, Grimsholm and helped bolster their hand in the land war. I did this with no loss of life. It was one of my proudest achievements. With this thought, Stephen dozed off. Jack, after his long discussion with Harding dismissed him and stood up and stretched and said to himself, “I wonder where Stephen has got to. Down in his little cabin in the sick-berth, no doubt. I’ll go down and visit any men in the sick berth and then bring him back here. Probably cutting up some animal.” He shuddered and thought, ‘I wish Stephen wouldn’t do that. I just wish he would leave dead animals and people’s innards alone. It’s disgusting.’ Jack looked into the sick-berth and nodded and enquired of Stimpson’s health and went to Stephen’s cabin. He walked in and found Stephen lying in his hammock, a book on his belly and his spectacles, having slipped a little way down his nose. It was too tempting and he bent down and kissed his lips and then his chest. Stephen opened his eyes and blinked and focussed and when he saw Jack smiled. “I must have nodded off.” “No mucky and horrible dissections this afternoon, Stephen?” “Yes I did actually. Carried out a little experiment with young Wells and a poisonous octopus. Fascinating, the toxin must be extremely lethal.” He turned his head and looked up again at Jack when he heard him gasp. “Stephen don’t tell me, you haven’t killed young Wells. You love children, you wouldn’t do such a thing.” Jack looked at him horror. “No, no Jack. He merely assisted me. I injected the venom into a rat. The little ghoul waited around to see me dissect the rat to see what the venom had done to its innards. You know the rat bled to death within a minute of injecting the venom? Quite remarkable.” Stephen mused on the state of the rat’s bowels. “Well that’s a relief, but must you cut up and poke around animals’ innards. It is so disgusting and you get so messy. Though I must admit, you look remarkably clean today.” Jack observed. “Oh I dissected the octopus and the rat in my drawers to preserve my clothes. Killick will not have an excuse to nag me tonight about the excessive laundry he has to do on my behalf.” Stephen said. “I’ve had enough of your’s and Mr Wells’ ghoulishness, come on up to the cabin with me for some music. I have not had such a pleasant afternoon.” Jack grabbed Stephen’s hands and hauled him from his cot. “Were your memories of that time so horrible?” Stephen asked, concerned, touching Jack’s elbow lightly. “No, it wasn’t that so much. You may not have heard, but two men were lost overboard this afternoon, Simons and Turner.” Jack explained. “Yes Stimpson was telling me of it, before we were interrupted by someone visiting him.” Stephen walked into the cabin behind Jack. When inside the cabin, with the door firmly closed he turned to Jack and said, “He started to tell me something about Simons but didn’t continue.” “Yes I’ve got a feeling their deaths may not have been accidents. The men didn’t call out that they’d fallen overboard for a fairly lengthy period of time and I can’t believe they did not see them fall. Mr Harding indicated Simons wasn’t popular and he had made some insulting remarks at dinner and provoked a number of men. But the usual thing has happened, I can’t get a direct answer out of anyone.” Jack sighed. “Simons and Turner worked on the foremast did they not?” Stephen asked looking worried. “Yes, that is why they fell, it was the foresail which blew out and they somehow managed to fall when trying to haul it in.” Jack explained looking at Stephen who was now pacing up and down and looking worried. “What’s the matter Stephen? What do you know?” “I was standing at the fo’c’sle this morning and overheard snatches of conversation from the tops. I didn’t recognise the voices, but they were talking about me and about you. One was commenting about my body and me bathing on deck, well it was crude and does not bear repeating. Well Awkward Davies was there and heard them as well and asked if I wanted him to go up and ‘bang their heads together’. I said no and chose to ignore it. Awkward Davies was treated this afternoon by Dr Jacob for a marlinespike wound and bruising. He commented at the time the pattern indicated that he had been fighting. Do you think Davies and some of the other men threw them into the sea?” “I don’t know, no one is saying anything. I can’t prove anything and it sounds from the tenor of the overhead conversation it might have been them talking. Simon was thoroughly unpleasant and I’m not sorry he’s gone to tell you the truth. Maybe they had to get rid of Turner because they thought he might blab.” Jack shrugged again. “There’s nothing I can do about it without proof.” “You’re right, so speaking of more pleasant things, what did you think about out there in the cold bracing air, this afternoon?” Stephen smiled at him and pulled Jack to sit down on the locker seat with him. “Oh this and that. Well the strongest memories are of my feelings at the time. The feelings of frustration and fear. Frustration because I could not re-establish the closeness we shared on the Leopard. I wanted you so badly, but either my own fear of rejection or someone got in the way. At first it was Diana, then Jagiello and then Colonel d’Ullastret and so it wasn’t till we were banged up in that prison cell that I could be with you. Frustration too at my life on land with Sophie. The same old thing she never seemed to want me that way. She just wasn’t interested in a physical relationship with me. That and the usual money and legal problems.” Jack sighed. “And fear?” Stephen prompted. “Fear for you my love, fear for your heart when Diana was on the scene. Fear for your life on the mission to Grimsholm and then fear again waiting in the cell for you to be brought back. I was so afraid they would kill you. I kept thinking of you in Mahon and I was sick with worry. You are so precious to me, Stephen, don’t you see?” Jack bent down and holding Stephen’s face in his hands kissed him tenderly, sweetly on the lips. Stephen closed his eyes for a minute and then opened them and smiled at Jack and leant his head against Jack’s chest. “I thought some more too. Not about you directly. More about my padri, Colonel d’Ullastret, how I loved him and how I must have hurt his pride a little. I blathered on at length to him about you, when he asked about you. He could see I loved you dearly and must have thought that in comparison that I viewed him in a not so favourable a light. I think it was why he was the way he was on board. He had heard my hero-worship of you and felt he had to prove something to you that he was equal in courage and honour somehow and so he talked endlessly about himself. I think you thought him rather pitiable, but he was not, he was a brave and courageous man, perhaps a little vain and a little too keen for pre-eminence and sometimes a little headstrong and foolish. But he was my padri, how could I not love him? He was my true father in so many ways.” “So your afternoon thoughts were innocent and chaste, even properly dutiful and filial? I had hoped for some more erotic memories so that you would be hot and lusty for me. I shall have to seduce you the old-fashioned way, with music. Do you wish to play?” Jack smiled and touched his lips to Stephen’s hand. “Of course, I’ll go get my cello. Which piece do you think? The Haydn in D Major?” Stephen got up and went to the sleeping cabin to retrieve his cello. Jack’s violin was already on the table and he got up and started to tune it, smiling when Stephen returned with the cello and some rosin. “Do you need some?” He offered it to Jack. “Thank you Stephen.” Stephen sat down and settled the cello between his legs and stretching his fingers, then took up the bow and played a few experimental chords and then waited bow in hand for Jack to launch into the Poco Adagio. The music worked its wondrous magic, pulling them up and out of themselves, liberating their spirits to soar and dive and swoop and merge in beautiful harmonies. As always soothing their cares and worries so that they melted away and all that was left was their pure essence, partnered and joined to each other within the music. Go to Chapter 9

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A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 1

Title: A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 1
Characters: Stephen, Jack, Diana, Killick, Mr Harding, Awkward Davies, Amos Jacob, Mr Wells, En Ramon d’Ullastret Casademon
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers for The Surgeon’s Mate
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed from Patrick O’Brian & his heirs on a non-profit basis

A Friendship Dissected

Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 1

Stephen woke early, for him feeling refreshed and energised. He’d slept solidly from the time Jack had got into the cot with him and pulled him close. Jack was still sleeping and Stephen attempted to wriggle out of his grasp without waking him. He had managed to loosen Jack’s grip somewhat but failed at the last when he tried to boost himself from the cot.

Jack woke and instantly tightened his grip upon Stephen, “Stephen, you’re awake. Good morning.” Jack bent his head to kiss him and rubbed his body against Stephen and looking down at him with a wide grin said, “Breakfast won’t be ready for a while. I’m sure we can think of something to do, while we wait.”

Stephen responded to the kiss and then moved his hands to Jack’s head to caress him and pulled back from Jack and smiled, a little regretfully, “Don’t you have some perfectly fascinating nautical duty to perform, first thing in the morning? Praying to the wind or sea god for a propitious wind or tide?” Then changing his mind, he snuggled up to Jack kissing him again. Stephen went to lift his leg over Jack to draw him close to his body and he felt the stickiness between his cheeks and wrinkled his nose and pulled back.

Jack protesting at his withdrawal tightened his arms around him again, “No, Stephen I do not and I want to worship at another shrine at the moment.”

Stephen laughed saying, “Which particular deity, Aphrodite? No Jack, I’m all sticky and I need to wash.” He then attempted to pull away.

“I don’t mind if you’re sticky, I’m just going to make you stickier, I hope.” Jack laughed and held him still, flipping Stephen on to his back and settling on top of him.

Stephen kissed his cheek lightly and shook his head, “No Jack let me go. I’m all frowsty and a rather unappetising sight, to be sure. Jack with all the fresh water you brought on board, can you spare some for me to properly bath in? Or at least a bucket or two so that I can rinse my whole body clean. I need more than a quick sponge bath.”

“Stephen I want to make love to you and all you’re interested in is bathing? It won’t be long before we reach the squadron and things may be a little more difficult there. We’d have to be more careful and I want …”

Jack was kissed into silence and Stephen drew back and smiling again, finished the sentence, “…and you want to have me as often as possible, up till then, is that it? I am surprised, sir, surprised indeed. Where is the rather sterile naval obsession with cleanliness I have always noticed with you seamen? Surely you approve of my desire to be scrubbed and shaved and trim? I distinctly recall that you expressly indicated only yesterday that you expected me to maintain a highly polished and formal, officer-like appearance on your flagship. You now object to my attempts to obey you, sir? I believe you are displaying a certain degree of inconsistency that would be troubling in an officer with less sterling parts than yourself.” Stephen finished in a bantering tone.

“Hmmph! Stephen you mock me and you’re using my words against me. That’s not fair.” Jack said somewhat peevishly.

Stephen kissed him again, “Don’t look so glum, joy. You shall have me this evening, I promise. Now let me up.”

“I’m suspicious of this new found interest in cleanliness. Up till now you have been somewhat lax in that regard on occasions?” Jack grumbled as Stephen rolled out of the cot.

“I’m merely seeking to obey my commanding officer. Now Jack can I have that water?” Stephen asked.

“Yes, why not. Killick, Killick.” Jack bellowed.

“Yes, sir. Breakfast’s not ready yet sir.” Killick called from the main cabin.

“The Doctor wants to bathe before breakfast. Arrange for some water to be drawn. Heat it, it’s still rather chilly.” Jack called and in a softer tone, said to Stephen. “It will be a little while before the water is heated, so get back in to the cot with me.”

“Just a minute Jack, maybe I should retrieve our clothing. Oh, they are here,” Stephen was standing looking down at the neat pile on Jack’s sea chest, the boots placed beside it. “Killick must have tidied up last night. At least he can be trusted to keep mum about us, though Jack there always have been rumours and conjectures about the nature of our friendship. You are correct; we shall have to be more circumspect.”

“Sir, there is a large pot already on the galley, heated, if the Doctor wants to bathe now.” Killick called from the main cabin.

“Oh good,” Stephen walked out into the main cabin. “Thank you Killick. Is there room to place a large dish or platter I can stand in while I pour the water over me and soap myself? Not really I see.” Stephen frowned as he looked around the cabin, the table now set for breakfast. “Oh well, I’ll wash on deck. Could you arrange for the basin and water to be brought up? The sun is up and I shall avoid trying to splash the holy deck, scrubbed and scoured as I’m sure it is.”

“Sir, it is still chill, not sure you should be splashing around in water in the cold morning air.” Killick reproved him and when Stephen headed to the cabin door, “Doctor you can’t go up onto the deck without clothes in this weather, put a coat over you and put on some slippers.”

“Yes, yes Killick,” Stephen went back to the sleeping cabin, obeying Killick without a thought.

“You more readily obey him, than you do me at times,” Jack grunted as he heaved himself out of the cot.

“Well he is the man who is arranging my bath and preparing my coffee, it would not be wise to cross him,” Stephen laughed. “Do you want to join me in my ablutions? I’m sure there is enough water for both of us?”

“No, I’ll do with a quick sponge down here,” Jack muttered. “Wouldn’t look right, scrubbing each others backs on deck.”

Stephen wrapped himself in a coat and after rummaging in his sea chest found some soap at the bottom of it and grabbing his sponge and a towel, slipped out of the cabin. Climbing on deck, he smiled and greeted the men standing at the rail and turned to see Killick pouring hot steaming water into a large silver dish just forward of the quarterdeck. It was the immense, shallow silver platter in which he served some of the more inventive desserts, like the Galapagos creation of fond memory. Stephen doffed the coat and dropped both it and the towel on to the newly holystoned and now dry deck. Some of the men around were staring dubiously at the platter and seemed worried about the effects of the water splashes on the deck.

Stephen assured them, “Do not worry about the deck. I shall be most careful to not spatter it with soap and water.”

“Wait sir, just a little of the cold, so you don’t scald your feet. There sir, now give me your coat and the towel. You shouldn’t leave it lying around the deck, getting wrinkled or trampled on sir.” Killick scolded him, as Stephen stepped into the dish and using a scoop beside the bucket, poured water over his body from the steaming bucket beside the basin. He then started soaping himself all over and scrubbing with the sponge.

Jack walked on deck and up to the quarterdeck and he noted that most of the men’s eyes were on Stephen, now scrubbing away with gusto at one of his feet. Some instantly moved away or looked the other way when they saw that the Captain had noticed them staring at the Doctor. Stephen stood up straight and noticing Jack, smiled at him. ‘Oh God! You’ve done it now Stephen.’ Jack thought. ‘He was joking about worshipping Aphrodite, but Stephen standing there so beautiful and I could worship him. Neither of us is so young any more but he is still beautiful to me. No, I know what I want to do with him. Oh God! Get down, not here on the quarterdeck everyone will see the state I’m in.’ Jack glad of his coat, hurriedly buttoned it.

Stephen was now attempting to scrub his back, but could not quite stretch far enough and Killick plucked the sponge from his hand and began scrubbing his back. “Stand still sir, I’ll just finish this off and then I’ll rinse you off.” Jack’s eyes returned to Stephen and some close to him noticed the almost predatory gleam, the hungry look there as he looked at Stephen and followed Killick’s every action. Killick dropped the sponge and mixing a little of the cold water to cool that in the bucket scooped some out and poured it over Stephen’s head, repeating the action two or three times till all the soap suds were rinsed away. Stephen’s skin was pink and white and clean and to Jack’s horror, the bruises at his hips and on his thighs and the bite marks on his right buttock and left shoulder were clearly visible to him from here and knew they must have been to the men in the immediate vicinity of Stephen.

“Stephen, ahem Doctor, you’ll get cold if you stand there wet, in this breeze. You should cover up, lively now.” Jack called to him, his face now glowing red.

Killick had a towel in hand and was rapidly drying the Doctor who was attempting to retrieve it. “Killick I’m not a child, give me the towel. I’m perfectly capable of drying myself.”

“Now sir, step onto the deck. I’ve got your clothes here.” Killick held the drawers out, urging Stephen to step into them.

Stephen, rolling his eyes complied and submitted to Killick dressing him, but complaining nevertheless, “Really Killick this is most unnecessary. I’m a grown man and I can dress myself. Have done so since childhood.” Some of the officers and men turned away to hide their suppressed mirth, as did Jack now that the incriminating evidence of their night time activities had been hidden from public view.

Killick had also brought a chair up on deck, to which he guided Stephen, once he was dressed, “Now sir, sit down, we’ll just give you a shave and comb your hair.”

Stephen bit his tongue on any further protest at Killick’s fussing and glared at Jack as he saw the amusement there on his face. He remembered yesterday’s conversation and his vow that he would be more gracious in the future and submitted meekly to Killick shaving him and then combing his hair. Killick then applied some of the soothing lotion that he knew Stephen used after shaving, to his face. “There sir, just stand up sir and I’ll give you a quick brush down and you will be properly turned out sir, all trim.”

Killick after some vigorous brushing of Stephen’s coat stood back to admire his work. “Good sir, it will be even better when we get you a proper uniform.”

Stephen smile was a little forced at the mention of the new uniform but he did manage a strangled, “Thank you Killick.”

Killick ordered some of the young powder-monkeys to remove all signs of the Doctor’s ablutions from the deck and went below to grind the coffee and see to the Admiral’s breakfast. Stephen walked toward Jack who was now staring up at the sails and then out to starboard and then to the sky. “Good thing that you had your bath so early Stephen, I think by the look at the clouds and the feel of the wind, it may start to blow hard this afternoon. I’d hoped we’d be out of the Strait before then, but we may have to moor in one of the inlets and wait till it blows over.” Jack addressed Stephen, but could not suppress the wide grin when he added, “Well I see Killick has you in shipshape form. A great improvement Doctor, you should be properly grateful to him. I hope you intend to maintain this standard.”

“As you see, I have kept my promise to you, but really Jack, I don’t think it is quite necessary for Killick to dress and groom me. I can manage that perfectly well myself. I only submitted because I couldn’t think of a gracious way of declining his attentions.” Stephen looked cross.

“Come Doctor, come below and we’ll breakfast. The coffee will sweeten your temper. I can smell the bacon frying. Mr Whewell, you will call me on deck when the wind starts to strengthen out of the south. I’ll be in the cabin most of the morning with my clerk.” Jack walked with Stephen toward the companionway ladder. “More of that damned paperwork.”

Stephen was busily draining the third pot of coffee when Jack remembered to tell him the cause of his embarrassment on deck. “Stephen I don’t think it was wise to bathe on deck, like that. Much better you do it here in the cabin. The men could see the marks on your body, bruises and such on your thighs and elsewhere. I could see them from where I was standing.”

“Oh they probably thought it was from falling down or against something. You are being a little over-cautious now Jack, besides the cabin is rather small on the Surprise. I assume you will have a grand, palatial size cabin on your flagship, so the same situation need not arise at all.” Stephen dismissed his worries with a wave of his hand.

“Well it was damn difficult standing there, looking at you naked and try to control my feelings. There isn’t much leeway in these breeches.” Jack added.

Stephen shook his head, “Jack really there must be something that you have been eating recently that has induced this satyriasis. I must look more carefully into your diet. Perhaps you should cut back the quantity of meat you are eating, it may ameliorate the condition.”

“No, it’s due to not getting some early morning sweetness.” Jack growled.

“Come now Jack, you cannot complain that I have been neglecting your needs. In fact you have had more attention from me this last week than almost the last three months all together.” Stephen pointed out.

“Maybe because I was on such short rations before makes me want to make up for it, now. The thought that I won’t have much time to spare in the future, once I take over the squadron and having to be extra careful may have something to do with it, too” Jack countered, looking glum.

“Now Jack, I know you. Once you have the bit between your teeth, you’ll be full sail ahead, enjoying every minute of it. You will spend days ferreting through every ship in the squadron, looking for flaws, making suggestions to their captains about the best way of setting jib sails and bonnets and top gallants and other such frippery, getting the ships’ crews firing guns at all hours of the night and you shall not have a minute to spare for me. I shall pine for you, lonely and disconsolate in my cot, languishing from your neglect of me.” Stephen then laughed, not being able to feign any great degree of seriousness.

“Well all the more reason you should be more attentive to my needs now, isn’t there. Have you drained all the coffee from the pot Stephen? Oh yes you have, you greedy creature. I shall get Killick to make me another pot so I can attack more of that paperwork. I must get on, so be off with you Stephen I have work to do. I shall see you at dinner.” Jack rose from the table and Stephen went to get his glass and his notebook.

Stephen went below to make a quick tour of the sick berth to check how the few patients that were there fared. Once satisfied that everything was fine there, he went up on deck hoping that he may sight any new species of birdlife. The storm that Jack mentioned was brewing in the south may cause some new as yet unrecorded bird to abandon its roost and flee, ahead of the storm’s ferocity north, across the Strait to the mainland. He went forward and looked longingly at the bowsprit, wishing to creep out there as far as the spritsail yard, but he daren’t as he knew Jack had expressly forbidden it, unless Jack or someone else was there to hold him steady. He leant on the rail and focussed his glass on a bird he saw now wheeling and turning, five hundred yards on the larboard side. The men’s voices drifted down from the tops and he caught snatches of conversation. He heard himself mentioned and listened more intently.

“Did you see the look of him this morning, standing there mother-naked in that dish and the Captain staring at him as if he would like to eat him up whole? I prefer a woman meself, but I wouldn’t mind a taste of that. If you haven’t been with a woman for so long, a molly will do. He’s soft and white and pink enough you could imagine he was a woman. See those marks on his thighs and arse, the Captain has been enjoying himself.” Stephen blushed and wondered if he moved off whether they would see him.

“Stow that will you. You’ll no more get near to tasting that sweet piece, than the Captain’s wife. Did you see the look the Captain gave some of them that were taking a little too much attention of the Doctor? Don’t let Awkward Davies or some of the others hear you or you’ll be for it. He don’t take kindly to anyone saying something against the Captain or the Doctor.”

“Bloody sodomites!”

Stephen looked down, trying to regain his composure. The casual conversation about himself and Jack distressed him. Did all the men think this of him? That he was a ‘molly’, the Captain’s ‘piece’. A large hand was placed gently on his shoulder, “It’s all right sir. Just damned ignorant swabs they are. Do you want me to go bang their heads together?” Awkward Davies asked.

He shook his head and shrugged helplessly, “No, I don’t think it would make much difference. You can’t knock down or abuse everyone who expresses an opinion about you that you don’t like. You know the saying; those that listen at keyholes rarely hear any good of themselves. Or it’s something like that; I can’t quite recall it correctly at the moment.”

“Do you want to go out on the bowsprit sir? I saw you looking. You can go out for a little while, I’ll watch. But the swell is starting to rise higher sir; it may not be safe for much longer.” Davies said.

“No, it’s all right Davies; I’ll go back and sit on the taff-rail bench. I can see just as well there.” Stephen walked slowly aft. The voices above thankfully were silent now.

Stephen stepped onto the quarterdeck and wandered towards the taff-rail. The officers there all noted how distracted he seemed. Mr Whewell bent down and whispered to Mr Wells to go and see if the Doctor was all right.

Mr Wells happily trotted aft to see the Doctor. He liked the Doctor and he was always very kind. He never yelled at him and was usually patient with him. “Good morning sir. Are you looking for more birds, sir? Or some whales or seals or penguins? I can help you.”

“Good morning to you Mr Wells. I’m hoping to see some new birds today. The approaching storm may flush them out from their hiding places. Thank you, you most certainly can help me. You can keep watch for me looking forward, while I will keep watch abaft.” Stephen smiled at the boy and decided he did not want to waste time brooding on the words of those men. ‘Only Jack and I know the truth of our friendship and I don’t care what they think. There are better things to think of than their crude opinions.’

Stephen kept watch fruitlessly for an hour or two and then abandoned his search and called to young Wells that he might return to his regular duties. He thought on Jack and Diana, his two great loves and the turning point that allowed him to at last realise the hopes of so many years and attain at last her love, her love that was shown to him in her totally clear and unambiguous action. Diana like Jack showed her willingness to risk her life to free him, to save him from the clutches of the multifarious French intelligence agencies by sacrificing her prized Blue Peter diamond to engineer his release.

‘Up till then things had been very uncertain between us, I doubted that I even loved her when we were in Nova Scotia and we had our first argument there since our escape. An argument with me pressing her to marry me, have the baby who I would accept and rear as my own and she pleading in vain for my help to abort Johnson’s unborn child. Both of us stubborn and immoveable in our convictions and yet wasn’t it in Halifax at the celebratory ball for the Shannon’s victory that I felt that same pleasure in her company, felt the old stirrings for her in my heart? When I looked at her, she was, as always, the most beautiful woman in the room. Then there was the absolute joy I experienced when dancing with her, surrounded and overwhelmed by her exquisite grace and of course there was the welcome return of her old spirit of rebellion, that spirit, I had so admired. But no, it had not been enough then for Diana, she saw through me, saw the lack of that passion in me that passion that had always been there before and would not accept half of me, no she was too proud for that. She would have me but on her own terms and all of me. She was a woman who demanded passion from her lovers and at that time it was sadly lacking in me.’

‘I took her to Paris and left her with my friend Adhémar de La Mothe. I knew he would admire and love her for her sense of style and dash. That would be the perfect place for her to stay and I attempted to ensure the safe arrival of her child by engaging Baudelocque as her accoucheur. Yes it was there in Paris, at the Institut that I first heard people gossiping about Jack and me. Those men standing behind a door, slightly ajar talking quietly, but not quietly enough. I heard them discussing me, comparing notes.

“He is no great orator, but then that is hardly an essential quality for an intelligence agent. If his activities as a naturalist are a cover for his activities, it is extremely well done. I cannot believe this pitiful little man who obsesses over the avifauna of New Holland and the East Indies and Pezophaps solitarius could have the slightest talent in our profession. There are also those other rumours well supported by his behaviour here in Paris.” Said one in a bored and contemptuous tone.

“Yes he is obviously one of La Mothe’s persuasion. To be so totally unmoved by such a beauty as Madame Villiers indicates his singular lack of passion for women. I believe that he has some type of illicit relationship with one of the Royal Navy’s Captains, Jack Aubrey. He always sails with him as his surgeon and is known to be a close and particular friend. They share a cabin and it is rumoured his bed. But that is not so strange, as one hears that the British Navy is run on rum, sodomy and the lash. Yes he is a peculiar little man, Aubrey’s catamite no doubt. I don’t see this little pervert as a spy. His perversions would make him too much of a risk for blackmail. No, British Naval Intelligence would not be so stupid to use him as an agent. He is totally unsuited.” The other answered dismissively.

“Let’s go, there is nothing to interest us here.”

‘I remember being amused and delighted by that particular interchange. It ensured the continuing security of my cover. I was seen as a perfectly innocent naturalist and physician whose only sin was that of being a pervert in their eyes. The thing that worried me the most is where they had heard such rumours about Jack and me. Were they from members of the Navy, even the Admiralty? If this were so, Jack’s career prospects were certainly endangered by my presence. Or was it just the interpretation the French agents have placed on our relationship? Our close friendship was well known and Jack had no reluctance in expressing the value he placed on our friendship and me, to others in the service. He was proud to be my friend and made sure everyone knew it. There certainly was no evidence available to anyone in the Navy at that time that we had a sexual relationship. It was a limited and all too brief affair that had faded as soon as we left the Leopard. No one could have known.’

‘But was the sexual affair over? Occasionally I noticed Jack looking at me, a question in his eyes. Did he still want me? But there was diffidence on both sides and both of us hung back, unsure of what the other was thinking and feeling. But that too was confirmed for me in Paris, in our prison cell. I had been returned to the Temple and walked into our cell. Jack ran forward and embraced me and then holding me by the arms pushed me back and looked me up and down, searching for any proof of injury.’

“I’m all right Jack. It was just a fairly standard interrogation by the military. They have not hurt me.” I smiled at him, trying to reassure him, but not wanting to say any more. I could have added, ‘not yet’ but what would that achieve?

“Stephen I was so worried about you, I kept thinking you know, of that time at Mahon. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t think of anything but you.” He pulled me close again and kissed me. I looked to the side and Jagiello entered from the other room and I stepped back.

“There you are. We have kept your dinner for you and all the wine.” He beamed at me, his handsome youthful face aglow, seemingly unconcerned by my absence.

“Jack how does the work in the privy go?” I asked nervously as I devoured my meal. I was ravenous as well as thirsty and drank the wine in great gulps. The relief after the questioning had sharpened my appetite. “Jack drink some of this wine, I can’t drink it all.”

“Not very far as we are waiting on a double sister-block, coaked to help move some of the bigger stones. I didn’t feel like doing anything while you were away, I was too worried.” He gulped down more of the wine and between the two of us we had finished the two bottles of wine by the time I had finished my meal. Jagiello had returned to his scraping in the jakes.

Jack was a little inebriated now and I noticed his eye on me and then he put his arm around me and drew me close and bent and kissed me, drawing back gauging my response and seeing no sign of rejection, kissed me again this time more deeply. He then pressed his body to mine and whispered, “Please Stephen, tonight after Jagiello is asleep, come to my bed, please.” I nodded and kissed him again. He pulled back and smiled. “I’ll go see if he’s tired yet and whether he wants to go to bed early?”

Jagiello as always was amenable to any suggestion and we all settled down, and I waited until I could here deep, even breathing from the other pallet. I got up and crept into Jack’s room, feeling his arms surround me in a hug as soon as I entered. He drew me to the bed and started kissing me, his hands busy undressing me. The proximity to death or the threat of it this afternoon had sharpened all of my appetites. Just those few kisses and this urgent fumbling in the dark so quickly and so easily aroused me that it surprised Jack. Pleased and surprised him. He rapidly stripped me and he was already naked and our coupling was swift, brutal and urgent. I came as hard and fast as Jack. He had plunged into me with little preparation, but I felt such urgency I did not care and spurted into his hand as he released into me, kissing me into silence. I lay back panting with, Jack collapsed on me gasping and turning his face to my neck, kissing and licking me there.

“So good, Stephen, so good. Why did we stop doing this?” Jack whispered to me.

“I don’t know Jack, lack of opportunity, depression, wrong mood, tension, worry, a myriad reasons, I should imagine. You still want me and I you, but what do we do?”
I responded quietly, shrugging, one hand on his left shoulder, squeezing it and the other hand on his cock moving it gently up and down, feeling again the first stirrings of renewed arousal. “There is Sophie and there is Diana. I love you, I know this and my feelings for Diana are somewhat confused, but I know I still wish to marry her. You have Sophie to consider. I do not want to hurt either of them.”

Jack sighed, “I know, I know. Perhaps we can try to limit our times together to on board or when we are away from home. I know I will not give you up, give this up.” He began kissing me again.

I was aroused again, just thinking of making love to him. “Jack, may I…. may I take you? You have always been the one to enter me, I have wanted to…”

“Do you Stephen? Do you?” He was silent but his prick was rigid in my hand and I felt it twitching. He bent and kissed me again and wrapped his arms around and rolled me so that I was on top. “Well how would you like me?”

“On your hands and knees Jack, I want to take you from behind.” I whispered to him urgently as I sat up letting him raise himself to his knees. I bent to him and started to lick and suck at that tight orifice, coating it with my saliva and then put my fingers to his mouth, “Suck my fingers Jack, make them wet.” I brought them back and gently eased one finger in and started to massage him, slow and steady, my other hand touched his prick and balls lightly and then I leant over his back to kiss his mouth, pushing my tongue into his mouth as I plunged my finger into his nether mouth. Then I insinuated a second finger stretching him a little further and heard his groans, his body responding to the internal massage, my own body now swaying longing to enter, to take him, make him mine. The desire was so fierce, I had trouble controlling myself, and Jack was now urging me on.

“Stephen, Stephen come into me, take me Stephen, I want to fell you inside me. Need you.” Harsh urgent whispers that drove me on. I sat up and steadied, holding my prick to the opening I gently, so gently nudged him, pushing but feeling little or no resistance so far, feeling his muscles clamp onto me. I stopped part way and his low moans and groans of desire urged me on and I pushed in further opening him and then not being able to hold back ground myself all the way in, feeling his body spasm around me, his gasp of pleasure. I pulled out and in, out and in, the movement now hypnotic. I couldn’t stop, my body’s desire for him driving me on, as I plunged again and again into his body, my whole being aflame, enraptured at possessing him completely, feeling and hearing his pleasure returning to me in waves. I drove in that last time and released inside him not able to stifle my cries as I came and then collapsed onto him, feeling his come trickle over my fingers now caressing his softening penis.

I lifted myself off him, listened carefully, but Jagiello was now snoring lightly and turned Jack on his side and nestled down beside him, kissing and caressing his hair, “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you? Love you.”

“I’m all right. More than all right. I did not know how good that would feel. When you touch me in that place inside it’s like I’m going to explode. It is so exciting, I’ve never felt that way.” He began to kiss me again and held me tight but he was tired now and I knew he would soon sleep and started stroking his back gently and crooning to him softly. Jack was asleep, way down deep, his body perfectly relaxed. I held him tight, knowing I should leave his bed now, get dressed and go back to my pallet, but I wanted to sleep with him lying in my arms and so nuzzled his throat, his mouth, what was left of his ear, wanting to taste him and pressed my body against him, cock to cock. I slept.

‘I knew then I would never give him up, that my desire would remain and that both of us would seek these pleasures of each other whenever we were at sea. This precious comfort, this joy and balm to our spirits. But that very next day my feelings as if they were like water suddenly released when a faucet is opened, responded in similar fashion to Diana when I was told by Duhamel, of her attempted rescue of me. Perhaps our interlude of the night before was a trigger and all my pent up emotions for both of them gushed out. I had questioned my feelings for her but when I had learned of her glorious, loving, hare-brained action, all my feelings of love and admiration returned in full flow at the realisation that yes she did love me. I was truly alive again, in love deeply in love with both. I could never give one up for the other, I would have both. They were both necessary for me to live. When I was placed in that noisome beehive cell after the confrontation with Johnson, I have never prayed before as I prayed that night for my loves. Prayers sang in my mind, the long hypnotic cadences of plainchant, imploring protection for my two loves.’

‘The next day, when I leapt from the coach to kiss Diana, I was overwhelmed again with the old familiar passion for her, but strengthened now ten-fold, she saw it and felt it in that kiss. She pulled back and looked at me and laughed, delighted, claiming that indeed I would be her jewel. Even later when we exchanged coaches and I was in the coach with Duhamel and d’Anglars, my feelings were still running in full spate. I am surprised I could even attend and follow Duhamel’s closely thought out and intricate arrangements. Perhaps my mind was energised, by my rediscovery of all the joys of life, a man reborn. But by the time we had reached the safety of the cartel, some of the my anxieties about Diana and self-doubts had returned and we were arguing again. Jack looking embarrassed, escaped to the deck.’

“Oh, Maturin how can you be such a fool? You’re the one man I expect to speak to me as a friend. How can you expect me to accept such a proposal from you when you put it so crudely, as a matter of a necessity, as if it is some dire obligation to me that you must fulfil? Treating me as if I was used goods,” Diana snapped at me, annoyed at my pedestrian arguments.

“No, Villiers that is not what I meant…”

“Then what do you mean?” Her eyes glittering, with anger.

“Diana, I do love you, you know that. You have always known that. I would wish to marry you because I love you passionately and want no other than you as my wife. Please do me this honour, I beg you.”

I must have looked very pitiful, as she put an arm around me, took my hand and then kissed me tenderly, “Of course I will Stephen. You just had to ask in the right way, I do have some pride left, you know. Come hold me closer and give me a proper kiss.”
I crushed her to me and kissed her, pressing myself against her. I felt her hand move lower and touch the front of my breeches and she pulled back and smiled at me, “I did promise you that I would allow you some indulgence when I was shot of Canning.” She looked at the door of the cabin, “Can the door be locked? Do you think Jack and Mr Babbington have been frightened off by our tiff and will stay away for at least a half hour?”

I listened intently and could hear Jack discussing dolphins and martingales and other objects of nautical interest and from the tone I could tell they would be a while yet. I sensed Mr Babbington was arguing quite respectfully with Jack about them and was sure it would be at least an hour before they would venture down to the cabin. I smiled and went to the door and locked it, “They will be at least an hour yet, my dear.”

“Then come here my love,” she held her arms out to me. I swept her in to my arms, kissing her and caressing her. She leaned back and laughed again and started removing my coat while I kissed and licked her neck, inhaling her glorious scent.
“Come on and help me Maturin, take your clothes off. I’m not going to wrestle with you.” She pushed me back and I shrugged out of my coat. I started to remove my stock looking rather intently at Diana’s bodice. She smiled and turned her back to me, “Undo my buttons.”

My fingers shaking with eagerness made slow work of it, but eventually they were all undone and she slipped the dress from her shoulders. I bent, kissing her at the nape of her neck and gliding my hands from her shoulders and down her arms pushing the sleeves down. I turned her face to kiss her, gently, sweetly, nibbling her lips, licking them and then tasting her mouth. I moved my hands to her breasts, lightly touching and stimulating her through the sheer material, listening to her breath quicken, feeling her nipples stiffen, circling them, and turning her body to me I suckled them through the material, drawing them into my mouth. She was gasping now and holding my head and moving my mouth from one breast to the other. “Now my shift.” She whispered and I felt for the lacings at her back, frustrated I pulled back looking for the tie. She smiled and pointed and I loosened the tie and then the lacings and drew her shift away from her body. Sitting beside her, looking at her creamy, beautiful skin, her soft breasts, her pink nipples, I bent to kiss and caress her again.

I stood up and drew her up with me, the dress and shift cascaded to the floor and she stepped out of them and then sat back down on the locker seat and drew one leg up, the heel of her shoe touching my shirt. “Stephen be a dear and help me with my shoes and stockings.” I took her foot, removing the shoe and slipping my hand up her leg, to the tie that held the stocking up, undoing it and gliding the silk down her lower thighs and calves to her ankle, kissing the inside of her ankle and removing the other stocking. She lowered one leg and placed the other in my hand and it too was now naked. I could see the darkness of the hair through the sheer material of her panties. I felt my prick stiffen even further, my arousal was urgent now and she knew it and smiled and reached forward to rub me there and began to undo my breeches. She pushed my breeches and drawers down and impatiently swept my shirt out the way, “Stephen, take your shirt off, it’s in the way.”

I hurried to obey and she looked up at me, holding my prick now fully engorged in her palm and bent forward and kissed the tip and keeping her eyes on my face she opened her mouth wider and started to suck me in, moving her head toward me and then flattening her lips moved back, sucking and soothing, slowly, oh so, slow. Her other hand had captured my balls and were massaging them gently. All I could do is stand there, captured by her, my body now undulating, my breath rasping, “Villiers for the love of god, please faster, move a little faster, I need….” I gasped. She smiled and complied applying more pressure and sucking me hard and fast now and I exploded into her mouth, biting my lips to stifle my cries. I slumped a little and she drew back, holding my arms and pulled me down to lie beside her on the locker bench, kissing and soothing me with her hands.

“Maturin you still have too many clothes on. For heavens sake, do I have to remove your breeches and boots myself?” She then pushed me down and pulled my boots and then the rest of my clothes off, laughing and catching my penis and rubbing it again, “Shall we have a second coming, my dear.”

I sat up and pulled her down on top of me, “You are a wicked minx for sure, acushla. What shall I do with a wife like you?” I pulled at her drawers trying to remove them and to my horror I ripped the delicate material and it fell to the bench revealing her plump rounded buttocks, Diana laughed and threw her head back in delight. She grabbed my hands and placed them firmly on her cheeks and I rubbed them, pushing her body up and down against my groin, pushing against her, my prick now rubbing against the silky hair between her legs. I flipped her on to her back and sat back looking at her body, her legs were now spread and I bent down wanting the taste of her. I parted her outer labia and I licked and tickled her inner lips with my tongue, her plump and heated lips delicious. My hands reached for her breasts and I softly brushed them with the palms, and then held and tweaked her nipples, squeezing and rolling them between my fingers, as my tongue sought her clitoris. Yes, it was there and I sucked at it, licked and pleasured her. I felt the heat coming from her and she was moist, her scent exciting me. Her hands were pulling at me, she was pushing her body up, and she was ready for me. I moved up and kissed her belly, licking and sucking her tender flesh there and stroked my way up to her breasts, suckling her again and then bit and licked and kissed my way up her neck. She grasped my prick again, squeezing and rubbing my cock and I took her mouth, kissing her deeply, tasting her here too. My fingers were massaging her clitoris gently, my other hand at her rear, I inserted a finger there and watched as her eyes widened. I pushed in hard and massaged her like I had Jack, two nights before.

She called out, “Oh Stephen fuck me, fuck me now.” I quickly bent to her lips and kissed her and pulled her up with me, pressing my self to her. I sat back my legs stretched in front of me, my prick jutting up and lifted her on to it and pushed into her feeling her wet, heated flesh enclose me. She was balancing on her knees and she pulled herself up and pushed me down on my back and began moving up and down on me faster and faster, greedy for me. I was pushing up hard and holding her by the hips, ramming hard into her, watching her flushed face as she responded again to the pressure. I reached up to her head and pulled her down to kiss her again, my tongue thrusting into her mouth as my penis pierced those other lips. I knew I could not last much longer now and wanted to look at her face, as I moved my finger back to that little nub and rubbed as I pushed into her, stimulating her watching her eyes widen and I felt her muscles tighten and throb around me, caressing me in their silky folds and I came thrusting and spurting into her, watching her face as she came.

She collapsed onto me and I held her and stroked her black, silky hair, her back, her bottom, till we were calm. After a little while, she lifted her head and looked at me, tracing my lips with her fingers. I sucked at them, one then the other. She bent down and kissed me again and smiled at me, “Stephen where did you learn all these delightful things. You must have been very wicked in your youth. Or are these secrets only physicians know? Lord what a fool I’ve been. I could have had this with you years ago and I settled for those…” She looked away, upset, perhaps thinking of those wasted years.

“Shhh! No my love, maybe we were not ready for each other then, perhaps now is the perfect time for us. Don’t waste your life with regrets.” I smiled and kissed her again. I heard the marine at the door shuffling his feet and coughing and sat up. “Lord, they might be coming back. Quick, we have to dress.”

She scrambled off me and I ran around picking up the discarded pieces of clothes. “Here are your stockings, my dear. Oh your drawers are beyond repair.”

“You beast, Maturin, ripping my drawers from me, who would of thought it.” Diana sat back on the bench and threw her head back and laughed heartily. “Never mind, I’ll stuff them and my stockings in my bag.

“Come on, Diana. Hurry. They’ll be here any minute. Get dressed.” I had pulled on my drawers and breeches and stockings and was now hopping around trying to get my boots on. She bent down and wriggled into her shift and then put her arms through the sleeves of her dress.

“Stephen help me with the ties at the back, pull the end of the laces, good.” She adjusted her breasts under the shift and noticed me staring at them again, smiled and swatted me. “Stop staring at my breasts, Maturin and button my dress.” I buttoned her up and she made final adjustments to her bodice and stepped into her shoes. “Come now Stephen, you’re half-naked, put your shirt on. I’ll help you with the stock. Stand up, here’s your coat, put your arms into the sleeves and I’ll brush you down.” She brushed my coat with her hands, examined my breeches and with a mischievous smile patted me there too.

I walked to the cabin door and opening it saw the marine standing there rigid and very red-faced. ‘Oh God, how much has he heard,’ I thought. “Is there a midshipman or someone who could go and tell Captain Babbington that I would like to see him and that Mrs Villiers would like to speak to Captain Aubrey? If they would come and see us at their leisure, of course.”

“I will take the message to Uncle William, sir.” Called a young man and I saw him dash toward the deck. I nodded to the marine and went back into the cabin. Diana was scrubbing at a spot on the locker bench with her handkerchief. We sat down and I took her hand and kissed her cheek and sat beside her. The door opened and Babbington and Jack came in, looking worried at first and then both smiled as they surveyed us.

I made my request of William and he agreed and we were married there and then, with Jack giving Diana away. We celebrated with champagne. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I thought that things would go smoothly for us at last, but I hadn’t taken into account the misunderstandings and hurts that inevitably happen with all marriages when the two concerned do not see each other for months or even years at a time. I also severely underestimated Diana’s complexity and the absolute unpredictability of her behaviour.

“Sir, sir, look sir. Can you see it sir?” It was young Wells again, patting his hand to rouse him from his thoughts, his other arm stretched, pointing abaft to larboard. Stephen clapped his glass to his eye and stared at the bird, diving and swooping across the wake of the ship. It was a type of albatross, but Stephen wasn’t sure which one, the markings above the eye indicated one species, but the bird was much too large for this species. The wind had certainly picked up and the swell was rising and the movement of the ship was less predictable. Stephen was not quite properly balanced as he knelt on the taff-rail bench, leaning out over the stern and as the ship lurched he lost his balance and would have been hurled over the stern into the sea, but for two strong arms that grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back and held him tightly.

Stephen, clasped to Jack’s chest, heard Jack whisper to him, “Stephen you must be careful, you nearly went overboard then and I don’t fancy diving into these cold waters to fish you out.”

He was released and he turned and looked up at Jack, “Thank you Jack. I shall be more observant next time, to be sure.”

Stephen looked around and noticed how changed the sky and sea, as the now low-lying clouds were being ripped across the sky and their were white caps as far as the eye could see. There was a band of rain racing towards them as Jack urged Stephen to walk forward, “Come Doctor, you are only in your shirtsleeves and you will be soaked if you’re caught in the squall heading our way. Come down to the cabin while we wait for dinner. Mr Harding attempt the noon observation if you can and send the men to their dinner.”

“So Stephen, what have you been about this morning?” Jack smiled as he pulled him towards the locker bench seat. “Come sit beside me and tell me.”

“Just my usual musings on our life. Have you been totally involved in your paperwork?” Stephen asked.

“Yes, it’s wearisome, Stephen. What did you think about, tell me?”

“Well…” Stephen now blushed. “Um…well you and Diana…”

“Ah hah! I knew it. You were thinking about that night in the Temple weren’t you? The night you first took me. Now who is the satyr? Diana, what exactly were you thinking about Diana? She was absolutely magnificent, giving up her prized diamond to ensure our release, very handsome of her, very handsome indeed.”

“Well of course it included that. I was thinking more of the time we were on the cartel boat, returning home and well things that happened then.” Stephen blushed again.

Well there was the wedding ceremony and before you were arguing and you made up after I left …” Jack’s eyes widened as he speculated on how Stephen and Diana may have made up, “I know, I know. That marine who opened the door to Babbington’s cabin looked rather strangely at us as he opened the door, he was red with … embarrassment. You and Diana were… Stephen you accuse me of being a satyr and you make love to Diana in Babbington’s very own cabin, right under our noses and then get him to marry you on the spot. What a deviant creature, you are.”

“I must protest Jack. What is so improper about marrying Diana after making love to her? I immediately sought to protect her honour by offering her my hand in marriage. As well, I may add, ensuring her safety by restoring her British Nationality in one stroke. Perfectly respectable.”

“Stephen the proper order of things, is that you make love to your wife, after you exchange rings, not before. Rings … he, he…” Jack contemplated a witty, but rather scurrilous play on words about rings and looked at Stephen’s face and decided, no it would not do. He would certainly be outraged if he made such a vulgar remark, especially in relation to Diana.

But Stephen was quicker and saw where Jack’s mind had wandered and glared at him, “I certainly hope you will not continue that chain of thought. In fact I would strongly advise you to desist immediately.” He looked very severe.

Jack looked down, pursed his lips, looked up again and tried to look innocent, and then looked down again. “Stephen how is that you are the one who makes me feel guilty? You are just as much as a satyr in bed as me. I remember only last night, you lying there like a wanton on my desk, offering yourself to me. Hmmph!” Jack tried to look offended.

“Jack, you may have played Ophelia in Hamlet, but unfortunately you were only chosen on the basis of your singing voice, not your acting ability or might I say your feminine appeal.” Stephen smiled knowing he had successfully diverted Jack from his original tack. “It is your very masculine appeal that arouses me.” He then added in a softer voice, with a wicked smile.

“Evil, you are such an evil creature at times, Stephen. Did the devil send you to tempt me?” He grabbed Stephen and kissed him and tried to press him down on the bench, but Stephen managed to twist out of the embrace and stand up. “Stephen, you provoke me and then you refuse me. You are not being fair.”

“Well, if he did, you have fallen Jack, you certainly have. I fail to see how the mere expression of my appreciation of your beauty, somewhat aged and battered as it is, can be deemed provocative.”

“I swear Stephen you are the very spirit of contradiction at times, it is as if you were determined to infuriate me. Maybe I should treat you like some miscreant midshipman and put you over the gun and give your backside a good tanning.”

“But Jack, if I’m a creature sent by the evil one to tempt you, I would certainly enjoy that.” Stephen observed with a wry grin. He quickly bent and kissed Jack’s forehead and said, “Tonight Jack, be patient,” and changed the subject. “Now did you invite any of the officers to dinner or are we to dine tête-à-tête? I find I’m quite hungry and am salivating in anticipation.”

“No, just the two of us. I shall be on deck most of the afternoon, with the sea and wind rising, I should be there.”

“Jack, you can trust your officers, you know. You will have to trust them to take the Surprise back to England and when we reach the flag, the captain of the flag will be there too. Your responsibility will be to the whole of the squadron and the accompanying administrative work and your diplomatic role as well. You will be the highest ranking representative of your government and the Crown in the Indian Ocean and that role has many attendant responsibilities.” Stephen was serious now and Jack started to look very glum.

“I have wanted this, strived for flag rank all these years Stephen, but now when I think about it, some of the duties that go along with it, I begin to wonder if it is worth it or at least whether I would be suited to that type of work. Staying a captain, at least keeps me in touch with the day-to-day running of a ship, sailing her, navigating, the training of the men, everything I enjoy and now I’ll be marooned behind a desk.”

“Joy, you have handled this degree of responsibility before, with precious little support. You will have a clerk and a secretary and perhaps someone to help with the diplomatic side of things. If not, I’ll always do in a pinch. We may have to work very closely, if there are some negotiations to be undertaken. Don’t you wish to work with me?”

“That wouldn’t be too bad. You can always help me compose some of the reports too. You’re a much better hand at that than me.” Jack leant close to Stephen again and held him and whispered, “I will expect to work very closely with you no doubt. Secret information to be passed between us, that no one else may hear, so we would have to keep others from my cabin at times to maintain the appropriate security. I may have to examine things very closely with you.” He kissed Stephen and smiled.

“Jack, Jack I despair of you. I should send you back on deck after dinner. The wind and the rain may dampen those rampant appetites.” Stephen pushed him away.

“Wittles is up, sir” Killick called. “Shark steaks and then soused hog-face sir. Mushrooms too, we gathered buckets of them at that place where we took on our water. Drowned baby for pudding sir.”

“Good, my favourites and one of yours too Doctor. We’ll have some of the Chilean wine. I think we should preserve some of the better wines to farewell the officers when we reach Buenos Aires.”

Later Stephen looked up and frowned at the extra large second portion of the pudding that Jack was at that moment shovelling onto his plate. “Is it wise Jack to take a second portion? I’m sure you have gained weight again. You have been sitting most of these last few days with your paperwork, you must take some exercise or I cannot answer for the consequences. You must certainly go up on deck this afternoon.”

“The coffee, thank you Killick. A cup with me Stephen?” Jack poured the coffee and suggested. “Well Stephen I could take some exercise down here in the cabin, if you would cooperate.”

“Certainly not, I have some dissections to do this afternoon and I don’t believe you have spent one minute considering our life together after our escape from Boston. I look forward to hearing you tell me what you found significant in your life then. Now drink up your coffee and up on deck you must go.”

A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 8 – Diamond Memories Part 2

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