The Ionian Mission, by Patrick O’Brian, appears to be (or open) a new phase in the Aubrey-Maturin series. Back from their long travels of Desolation Island, The Fortune of War, and The Surgeon’s Mate, Jack and Stephen are sent to the Mediterranean for blockade duty. This struck me as a quieter installment; most of it is a low-level tense-yet-bleh, and then the action jumps up toward the end with the titular mission.
We get quite a lot of shipboard life in this one, and slightly more Jack than Stephen, I would say. Jack has a terrible cold for part of the book, and I quite sympathize with his feeling unfit for company or pretty much anything else.
I’m going to close this with a passage (behind the cut) that had me grinning fit to split my face; it’s from roughly halfway through, but doesn’t spoil anything of note. It may lose something when not read by Patrick Tull, but I can’t resist sharing it all the same.
Jack is on the Worcester, watching a transport ship sailing to join him:
His telescope lay on the locker beside him, and quite early he had recognized the transport’s commander, an elderly lieutenant by the name of Patterson who had lost an arm in an unsuccessful cutting-out expedition at the beginning of the war. He was now sailing the Polyphemus, a weatherly flush-decked ship, with great skill, keeping her as close to the wind as ever she would lie in the last long leg that would cut the Worcester‘s course; but it was not Patterson’s steel winking in the sun nor his exact judgement of the increasing breeze that made Jack stare more and more but rather something exceedingly odd that was going on amidships. It was as though the transport’s people were trundling a gun up and down: but a grey gun, and a gun far larger than any first-rate would carry even on her lower tier. He could not make it out from the cabin, nor from the stern-gallery, nor from the poop. On the quarterdeck he said to the signal midshipman, “Desire the transport to pass within hail, Mr Seymour,” and to the officer of the watch, “We will lie to for a moment, Mr Collins, if you please.”
The Polyphemus crossed the Worcester‘s wake, shot up under her lee, backed her foretopsail and lay there, rising and falling on the lively sea, her commander standing with his hook fast round the aftermost mainshroud, looking attentively up at the ship of the line. He was a lean, elderly man in a worn, old-fashioned uniform and his bright yellow scratch-wig contrasted oddly with his severe, humourless, sun-tanned face; but once again it was not Mr Patterson who fixed Jack’s gaze, and the gaze of every Worcester who could decently look over the side. It was the rhinoceros that stood abaff the foremast, motionless amidst its motionless attendants, the two ships being frozen into respectful silence while their captains conversed over the water like a couple of well-conducted bulls.
For propriety’s sake Jack first asked for news of the Admiral — sailed on Thursday evening, Melampus in company — for Mr Consul Hamilton — was aboard and would wait on Captain Aubrey as soon as he could stand: was somewhat incommoded by the motion at present, and then he said, “Mr Patterson, what is that creature abaft the foremast?”
“It is a rhinoceros, sir: a rhinoceros of the grey species, a present for the Pasha of Barka.”
“What is it doing?”
“It is exercising, sir. It must be exercised two hours a day, to prevent its growing vicious.”
“Then let it carry on, Mr Patterson: do not stand on ceremony, I beg.”
“No, sir,” said Patterson, and to the seaman in charge of the party, “Carry on, Clements.”
As though some spring had been released the rhinoceros and its crew started into movement. The animal took three or four twinkling little steps and lunged at Clements’ vitals: Clements seized the horn and rose with it, calling out, “Easy, easy there, old cock,” and at the same moment the rest of the party clapped on to the fall of a travelling burton, hoisting the rhinoceros clear of the deck. It hung by a broad belt round its middle, and for a while its legs ran nimbly on: Clements reasoned into its ear in a voice suitable to its enormous bulk and thumped its hide in a kindly manner, and when it was lowered again he led it forward to the foot of the foremast, holding it by the same ear and advising it “to step lively, watch for the roll, and mind where it was coming to, not to crush people with its great fat arse.” Here it was hoisted up, swung round, lowered, and led aft, walking quite meekly now with only an occasional skip and thrust of its horn or wanton flirt of its rump: hoisted again, turned and led forward: to and fro under the fascinated eyes of the Worcesters until at last it was brought to the main hatchway. Here it looked expectant, with its ears brought to bear, its dim eyes searching, its prehensile upper lip pointing from side to side. Clements gave it a ship’s biscuit, which it took delicately and ate with every appearance of appetite. But then the hatches were removed and the creature’s aspect changed: Clements blindfolded it with his black neckerchief, and by way of explanation Mr Patterson called out “It is timid. It fears the darkness, or perhaps the depth.”
“Handsomely, now,” said Clements. He and the rhinoceros rose a foot, travelled over the hatchway and vanished downwards, the seaman with one hand on the rope, the other over the animal’s withers, the rhinoceros with its four legs held out, stiff, its ears drooping, the image of grey anxiety.
“Lord, how I wish the Doctor were here,” said Jack to Pullings, and in a louder voice, “Mr Patterson, I congratulate you on your management of the rhinoceros. Will you dine with me tomorrow, weather permitting?”