The Good, the Bad and the Pretty Ugly

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"Barret Bonden, have you been brought by the lee, scuppered, dismissed from the field? Pray, recover from your exertions by joining me here under this commodious shady cycad for you are to observe that it is not one of your common palms though you could be excused were you to mistake it for one. It is perhaps a little spiky beneath. I would advise you to seat yourself on my collecting bag."

"It moved!"

"Do not be concerned, I dare say you have upset my serpent by sitting down in that hasty, inconsiderate way. As you see I am whittling myself as elegant as weapon as has ever been seen, even in the County Fermanagh. Yet you appear strangely distracted, friend, what is it that so engrosses you?"

"Oh Doctor, I was just looking over my shoulder at the match. Oh! that, that, fellow of an umpire! He has declared Critchley clean bowled yet I saw Wesley slyly slip the bails off from here, with my own eyes. I hope you would take it kindly from me, Doctor, if I was to warn you against Wilson. Why, though I say it myself, I had clearly re-gained my crease and poor Lieutenant Skinner, leg before wicket, and him an opener for the Gentlemen of Surrey and Mr Babbington... begging your pardon, Doctor, but your, er, stick... we are to use willow you know, fashioned just so, it will give you a better purchase on the ball you will find. Please allow me to lend you mine", bitterly, "not that it did me much good against that blind mole" and Bonden glared with an uncharacteristic hatred at the American gentleman wearing all the hats who was avidly botanising in the grass beneath his feet just as the appallingly fast Zimmermann reached the end of his 75 yard run up.

"Cuchulain himself could not boast so powerful a weapon and I am shocked, shocked, Bonden by your want of discrimination. Shame on you, and you a sportsman too. What is it that you were telling me of Babbington?"

"Caught at mid-on but I saw the ball bounce . When he wouldn't walk, the Boston Beans picked him up and carried him off feet first. I blame Lieutenant Trinque for it is common knowledge that he

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has no more understanding of the fine points of this game than you ... you ...," Bonden's cheeks turned a surprising shade of scarlet beneath the weathered tan, "than you, er, pinch between two fingers," he concluded lamely.

"That astounds me," the Doctor said, turning his freshly carved bat in his hands, "for I remember the lieutenant one time reciting a poem of his own composition about a cricket match: a most uncommonly elegant poem it was, too."

"I'm no judge of poems, sir, elegant or otherwise, but the lieutenant never saw a cricket pitch until he was master's mate aboard the old Insoluble, I overheard him say once. He was raised amongst those Boston Beans, you know, and they play some other kind of game there which involved running around in circles with no wickets at all, if you can believe that."

Stephen could well believe that, as he himself had never set foot on a cricket pitch until an age beyond even that of the hapless lieutenant and there were subtle aspects of the sport which yet eluded him. "Have I mentioned, Bonden, that Diana has assembled an all-female cricket team, the Dorset Diamonds?" He could tell that he had prodigiously shocked the coxswain. "She writes that their blue-and-black team uniforms are wonderfully striking. And if I might speak to you in a medical manner for a moment, I should like to enquire whether you have any particularized over-sensitivity to snake bites?"

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"Even if you have not," he continued, "I would advise against resting your hand on that unfortunate reptile and squeezing its throat every time poor Mr Wilson raises his index finger. I cannot imagine what you have against the gentleman; he is uncommonly expert on North American flora."

"She is a lady worth knowing I am sure," replied Bonden. But then in a sudden burst of indignation: "But, sir, how can that good lady, your wife, call her team the..." he stumbled on the words... 'the Dorset Diamonds'? Why, 'XII Ladies of Dorset' or 'Mrs Maturin's Invitation XV' — depending on how many she could muster, you see sir — would be much more the thing. And as for abandoning whites..."

His voice trailed off as a lanky figure strode confidently towards the wicket.

"It's Baker — our last hope!" cried Bonden excitedly. "The man we took on at Botany Bay. The Captain was suspicious of the manacle marks on his wrists and ankles, but he proved such a fine hand with a bat that we kept him aboard... Strange fellow. He will keep trying to burn his food on deck — a Bee Baa or something he calls it — and remarking that he can't believe it's August, it being so hot. And everything he says sounds like a question. But, still, he cuts a prodigious figure at the crease."

While Zimmermann was making his long, long run up, the umpire had pressed a lovely actinomorphic flower into his collection book. As the ball was about to leave the American's hand, Don Baker's bat — held wonderfully square — seemed ready to knock it for six.

But then a twangy, nasal, bean-fed voice called out: "Hey, batsman — your mother was intimate with wombats!"

As Baker straightened up instantly and glared round in indignation, he was clean bowled.

After a long pause Baker walked glumly away, accompanied by derisive quacking noises from the fielders. Bonden turned to Stephen and said:

"He was tenth man. You're on sir."

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"Well it looks like Aubrey's lads are in serious trouble, 188 for 10. They desperately need these 8 runs and ...and here comes their eleventh man. Everything to play for here — and I mean everything. A totally unknown quantity this Maturin. An ill looking fellow indeed and something of a dark horse. Have you heard of him before Mike?"

"Well I now Dicky, some lads went down to the nets to have a shufty a few days ago, but he's a sly cove if ever there was one, eyes like a hawk, and a precision batsman. Knew they were there of course, missed every ball consistently for over an hour. What are the odds on that! I'm telling you those lads are very concerned about this one."

"Well he's taking up his stance, unconventional to be sure. It's obviously unnerving the bowler, why he's got that nasty twitch back, haven't seen that since Aboukir Bay. See the limp in his run,....But what's this, a pitch invasion? Quick get that orangutang off the pitch it's heading straight for Maturin! Maturin hasn't seen him. This is a disaster for Aubrey's team! It's going to ...What play! What a hit!! Look at that ball go !!!!!"

"I told you he was a cool one Dicky. You ever seen anyone hit a six while being knocked flat by an orangutang?....Looks like he's paid the price though, a twisted knee by appearances. Aubrey's walking over to the umpire, seems like he's asking for something, I can't hear, but it looks like he's saying".........

srz
"Gentlemen, it's time we repaired to the shade of the pavil...er, cocoa-nut palm for our dinner. I understand Wilson has procured a prodigious fine wombat for the meat course..." Here, he risked a quick glance at Stephen, who made not the least acknowledgement of this provocative statement, being entirely absorbed in the minute study of a winged, oddly iridescent insect whose antennae were wound in an anti-clockwise spiral, confounding all he knew about the other members of its genus he knew from his studies elsewhere. "...and I know for certain he's labored since before dawn over a floating island for pudding, a confection made with the last of the cocoa-nuts and Aspasia's meagre offerings in the milk line: as fine a meal as we're likely to enjoy for some months."

At this unwelcome reminder of their precarious domestic economy, the seamen reluctantly gathered their makeshift gear; the party began straggling down through the sparse grass in the direction of the shore, the distant crash of mighty swells breaking out on the reef all too audible over their muted, desultory conversation. "Chips, give me an idea of the state of our repairs, if you will."

Zimmermann, his transitory glory as a bowler of the first rank fading, assumed his familiar shipboard role and started down the list: "Well, I won't vouch for her hanging knees, Captain; she was fair knocked up in the blow, but me mates have t'other major repairs well in hand, and there's naught but two feet of water in the well. I believe she'll ..."

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Here Stephen felt a discrete pressure on his arm and turned to find the orangutang looking up at him with great solicitude.

"Why Muong, my dear," he said, walking away with her to the shade of a convenient shrub, a shrub more covered with flaming red blossoms than leaves, a fair vegetable eruption of colour that put Stephen in mind of a piece of silk Jack had bought Sophie and which now lay, carefully folded between clean white cotton inside oilskins, inside the lead-lined chest in the tent, "you are never to worry about the game. I believe, though I do not assert, that one of the sides was quite please with our efforts. But, dear Muong, what ever are you at?"

The swarthy, matted bulk of the great ape was on her hands and knees, her feet wringing together with a sound like Zimmermann's sandpaper, her fists up at her head with the little, the very little, finger of each hand projecting forwards, wiggling. Jack Aubrey was the kindest soul on earth but nothing Stephen could do or say would stop his friend from afflicting Stephen's animals with human vices in misguided attempts at improvement and elevation. With the sloth it had been rum; with Muong, puns. Stephen sighed.

"Yes, yes: cricket. Very good. But surely a creature of your shining parts has not brought me here away from a very interesting discussion of shipwrightery merely to play the fool. What is it, now?"

Muong drew herself up and squatted so that they were face to face. Her close-set brown eyes fixed Stephen with an unusually serious glare and one of her uncommonly long arms reached out and gently but firmly grasped his head. The other hand she raised. Carefully closing her thumb and forefinger, she peered at him trough the gap.

"Something in the medical line? Your eye perhaps?" A single shake. Stephen was long practised in cryptography and deception. Puzzling out an intended message was altogether simpler. Muong squeezed her fingers more closely together, shook them in front of Stephen's nose, and then resumed peering at him from behind the gap.

"Small? Miniscule? Lilliputian?"

A low moan of tentative approval came from the orangutang.

"Diminished? Reduced? Meagre? Trifling? Infinitesimal? Minute? Triturated?"

Another moan, less approving, more impatient.

"Oh very well. Fine? Slight? Tiny? Wee?"

"Ha!" barked Muong, presenting to Stephen her dirty canines, a livid tongue, and a deep, deep foundation of the reek of digesting durians. When he had collected himself, Stephen said:

"Wee, my dear?"

Muong's eyes dilated slightly with exasperation, a dilation he was very familar with from Mrs Broad, Mrs Fielding, and especally from Mrs Maturin. She now took his head in both her hands, squatted over his lead-soled shoe and carefully deposited a few drops on the toe.

"Wee wees," he said. Muong clasped him to her leathery bosom, then pushed him away to beam at him wih fondness and affection, mixed with just a little pity, a look he had last seen given by Diana to a singularly stupid Arabian. Muong pointed to the top of a Durian tree and then stood with the other arm pointed out to sea.

"Bless you Muong," cried Stephen, snatching up his wig and running back towards the camp as fast as he could, calling out "Jack, Jack: Muong has seen the French."

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High in the mizzen shrouds of the Jolie Laide, Linois was puzzled. During the whole morning session he had been providing a ball by ball commentary to be relayed to his fleet over the horizon by a furious hoist of signals, a relay uncommonly busy even amongst the talkative French. He adjusted his glass, rien. He called to the lookout in the cross trees mais non, the field remained deserted though stumps had not been drawn and the lunch interval had dragged on now for over an hour. Either the idle b*ggers must fairly worship their bellies, he wondered what was for pudding, or... another possibility occurred to him. He slid down the backstay.

"Pierrot" he said to the exhausted but keen signal midshipman, his nephew, "Signal: Les Haricots are intimidated. They refuse to bat. Repeat to all ships".

"Mon oncle, say it is not true! Batrinque le Basque and the legendary Casey were to open! Oh, it is inexcusable! It is unjust! After The Don was dismissed for a duck too. Sacrebleu! I miss all the amusements."

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote, "Courage, mon petit, you may yet be able to tell your grandchildren that you have seen Trinque at the bat. We shall disguise ourselves as an American whaler and go close inshore to barrack for him. Trinque never yet has been able to resist his admirers." He grasped the speaking trumpet, "All hands on deck. Rouse out the crow's nest and the trick whale. Make yourselves squalid. Quick as you can. There is not a moment to lose."

The Jolies Laides knew what o'clock it was, it was un quart d'heure past the scheduled time for the commencement of the afternoon session, and they swarmed over the ship.

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The transformation from an elegant and stately ship-of-the-line to a nasty Yankee whaler was carried out with typical Gallic thoroughness: Narrow strips of gaily coloured silk hung upon the braces and halyards — the notorious pendants du Catalonia, indicative of a crew overly fond of long afternoon naps. Topsails furled in baggy drooping shapes reminiscent of the pantaloons of mademoiselles of the generously statuesque variety. Garlands of baguettes fresh from the oven draped over the stern chasers to cool. Empty wine bottle scattered promiscuously over the deck. Dollops of sauce Bearnaise dribbled down the sides of the hull. "Sacre bleu," moaned the admiral's chef and he hurried below, trembling and teary.

"Sacre blanc," murmured Linois, "C'est un sty des cochons certainment. But still needs there that American touch to make ze whaler of conviction, n'est pas? Capitaine, send to the forecastle ten of your crew of the most noble aspect to display themselves in the mode of simply happy red savages du wilderness American."

Ten simple happy crewmen of noble mein, stripped to loincloths and displaying themselves on the forecastle, the admiral frowned again. "Sacre noir, there is missing something still from their bearing which might lead Jean-Jacques himself to doubt if perhaps they were the savages noble vraiment, despite the static poses of wilderness simplicity they assume. They wear no feathers about the head, oui non?"

"Mon oncle," cried Pierrot, "sacre vert, the solution I have in the hand!" The midshipman dashed below and a moment later ran back with a box du cardboard. "Here, mon amiral, is several dozens of the fine quill pens sent to me by Madame Amiral." With Linois's permission, the young sea officer sped forward. In a few minutes, Pierrot reported back. "C'est fini, mon oncle," he said, gesturing towards the feather-bedecked sailors frozen into Red Indian-like postures. "I have put les plumes de ma tante sur le tableau."

Preparations complete, the ponderous three-decker now glided landwards, carried by the gentle breeze.

Jack Aubrey lowered his telescope and handed it to Stephen. "A ponderous three-decker whaler, although this gentle breeze carries a scent more redolent of a Parisian restaurant than of a New Bedford vessel. But certainly those are authentic American Indians on the forecastle."

Squinting through the glass, Stephen scrutinized the noble savages. "I think not, brother. The head ornaments of those purported simple red children of the forest are clearly made from the tail feathers of the Anatidae Gasconia Blanca, the famed White Goose of Gascony. They're Frenchmen, Jack. Muong was correct."

"Two can play at that game, Stephen. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the bird in hand. To the cricket pitch!"

The Surprises affect nonchalant poses, outwardly intent upon the resumed match and unmindful of the approaching ship. Lieutenant Trinque took a resolute stance, bat clenched firmly in hand. A glare of fierce determination molded his brow. "Sir, sir," Bonden called in a low voice calculated not to carry more than seven or eight hundred yards in a moderate gale. "Generally speaking, sir, we find that facing the bowler works best."

The lieutenant gazed around perplexed. "The bowler? Are we playing at ninepins, then, such as I saw amongst the Dutch colonials in the Hudson River Valley of New York? Ohhhhhh, you mean the gentleman with the ball!" Lieutenant Trinque turned about and resumed his stance. The ball whizzed towards him. The lieutenant lunged forward and swung his bat in a mighty arc. The ball

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, following a perfect line, bounced and crashed into the middle stump, sending the bails flying. Trinque's main error had been letting go of the bat. As it left his hand, it continued in its mighty arc, glinting in the tropical sun. His other little mistake concerned the position at which he held the willow blade; high above his head. Trinque had put his heart and soul into the stroke and the bat — rotating about its short axis — flew a prodigious distance. It finally buried itself into the ground at deep backward square leg. Stephen, who was nominally fielding there, looked up from his examination of a stercoricolous beetle in considerable surprise.

The Jolies Laides worked themselves into a fever of excitement over these events. Pierrot and his particular friend Boulanger danced round the foremast chanting "La Basque, 'im 'e is out!" Every telescope on board was trained on Stephen as, legs braced, he tried to pull the bat out of the earth. "Eet is like zeir King Arzer and ze surd in ze sturn," commented the officer of the watch, Lieutenant L'homme-de-la-salle, allowing himself a rare smile. He had a considerable quantity of Pomerol resting on the outcome of the game, and things were going his way.

The distracted French crew had failed to notice that Reade, and some of the other smaller, slighter players were missing from the field. They also neglected to observe that their trick whale was now floating towards the ship, its painted jaws grinning wide and distinctly uncetacean mutters of "handsomely there" and "careful where you put your elbow, you infernal lubber" emanating from beneath its wooden fins.

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Jack's carpenter and his mate had surreptitiously worked long and hard, quietly making adjustments to the whale Carefully Reade turned his scraper sideways and poked his telescope out of the hole in the whale's head. It was, he mused singularly fortunate that the doctor had sat on it several days before bending it savagely in the process

"Steady as we go" he whispered to the seamen working the fins.

"Ouch!" Plaice muttered "Das boot's in my back" !

"Quietly I say" Reade hissed, "ready the aft tube". Bonden clambered forward with several men carrying a very infuriated swordfish sliding it into a pipe at the front of the whale.

"A little closer" Reade muttered, then....... "fire !" Bonden opened the hatch at the end of the tube and out rushed the insensed swordfish heading straight for the French ship

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,bound for immortality as the first torpedo, had it had a better sense of direction, instead of barely impaling, without eclat, the starboard main chains.

On shore, the faux cricketers had had dropped all pretense of playing and were standing along the strand, waving their bats and doffing their hats, and sailing their spats; they cheered lustily as, with Reade's diminutive form in the lead, Bonden, Plaice and the others were disgorged from the whale's less than commodious belly into the waist of the Jolie Laide, like so many seeds bursting from the ruptured skin of an over-ripe cherry tomato under the ill-considered pressure of a blunt dinner knife wielded by an inebriated gourmand in a bouchon in the Vieux Lyon.

Two of the boarding party clapped on to the swordfish's great tail, and sweeping the writhing animal before them drove the greater part of the routed Jolies for'ard in a pan'c onto the foc'sle.

Linois retreated back up the ladder to his quarterdeck before Reade's furious onslaught, laughing so hard he had not even been able to draw his sword. "M'seur, I beg of you: stop, cease, l'arret, quittez, cessent; I shall die laughing wizzout you should perforez me wiz your sharp instruments. Pierrot, strike the colors, zat we may avoid any furzzair shedding of ze blood."

At the sight of the sole swordfish victim, Pierrot, gallantly ignoring his flesh wound and hobbling aft to carry out his orders, one hand for the ship and one for himself, the French admiral dissolved in renewed paroxysms of mirth. "Oh, oh, sir: tell to your stout Capitaine zat we have much to discuss, eef he weel be zo good as to receive us on shore, once we have recovaired zomewhat." Reade, puzzled by the unorthodox fighting style of the French, look toward the Surprises on shore.

There Stephen, who had hastily sutured flannels to a pair of cricket bats, was wig-wagging Jack's orders to avast fighting to the Surprises on the Jolie Laide. It was a skill he had learnt as a young man in Ireland, to what purpose even the narrator, a former Boy Scout himself, cannot fathom.

The French colors dipped, the men on shore raised an even lustier 'Huzzah!', and Jack said, "Well, well. I cannot begin to think how I shall properly cast my report to the Admiralty, eh Stephen?"

My Dearest Sophie,

I am quite well, my dear, dear wife, and shall hope this letter precedes my own appearance at Ashgrove Cottage by no more than a month or two. I know how you must have fretted over the lack of news these last months, but you must know that your sweet face has ever been a most wonderful bolster to my spirits in very trying circumstances; but I will tell you all about it when next we see each other.

We have met Linois, and defeated him in a most ingenious manner, overmatched though we were. It was the completest thing, my dear, though to attempt to describe it in a letter were but poor, thin gruel to the seven-course feast of witnessing the thing take place.

The victory was but illusory, however, as it came out shortly after, when Linois, wading ashore wearing a somewhat brighter expression than I might quite have liked in the circumstances, immediately begged to inform me of the Peace of Aaargh, which had broke out while we were cast on the shore of the amiable, but quite uninhabited island, where we have spent the last several months. He congratulated me on the peace and our survival as castaways, and invited the entire ship's company to put themselves at ease while his cook prepared, as he so charmingly put it, "a leetle nosh," just to take the edge off our hunger, so he says. Then he begged for Stephen's assistance to repair one of the Jolies who had been the only casualty of our little action; Stephen soon put him to rights and states with some confidence that he will soon be plying his trade again — though given the nature of his wounds this does not seem quite to square with the notions we have in the King's navy of such things.

Oh, the feast the Jolies put on, Sophie! Can you imagine it: we having subsisted largely on cocoa-nuts for the past months, and the French trying their utmost to be hospitable — and they only ten days out of port! They slaughtered the fatted calf in our honour, if you take my meaning. For starters, aa kind of pike-fish souffle, with tiny frog's legs nestled inside; though just where they found the frogs I am at a stand to imagine. Monstrous great fine poached andouillete sausages, on a bed of greens with a kind of vinegar sauce; I asked Linois's cook for the receipt and am sending it along with this letter so that cook may have time to perfect the dish before my return — I trust you will not trouble yourself about the...questionable ingredients; it does cook up most savory, I assure you. Then roast meats of several various kinds, encrusted with fresh herbs and sauced in an enchanting manner; though I do not quite like garlic in such copious amounts. Oh! and mounds of fruits and vegetables and fresh tack, such gaudy desserts as you never have seen, and even an iced sherbet! And the wines! Linois brought out the good stuff from his stores, and Lt. L-homme-de-la-Salle contributed twelve of Pomerol, and such a silky, yet robust and flavourful wine you cannot imagine. Sacre cordon bleu! It was as fine a meal as ever I ate in all my life.

We feasted on the strand; for hours and hours we gorged by the light of the silvery moon, the hands of both ships holding their own fandango a hundred yards or so down the beach, piping and singing and dancing around an immense bonfire they had fashioned from the wooden carcass of a kind of whale-fish decoy — but that story must await our reunion, I am afraid.

In the end, Linois left us quite a great mound of foodstocks and a dozen barrels of water, and agreed to carry our despatches back to Miralanipulani, along with our request for a royal navy repair vessel to come out from the dockyards there to help us refit the dear Surprise, the state of whose hanging knees is not to be contemplated by the squeamish.

I must close, as Linois is in a tearing hurry to be away and at sea. We should be in a position to do likewise ourselves, within a fortnight, and can only pray that the Admiralty will see fit to send us homewards to you and the children. Give my dearest love to the twins; to George I bid you tell him to straighten out and fly right. Is your mother stll alive?

Your affectionate, &tc., husband,

Jno. Aubrey