Disclaimer: All characters created by Patrick O'Brian. I make no claim to them.
Author's note: When Jack remembers Stephen's words, those in quotes are things Stephen actually said to him (and most or all are quotes from the movie), and those not in quotes are simply things Jack hears as his conscience speaking to him through Stephen's voice.
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The Requirements of the Mill
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For the first time in his service career, the sight of an enemy's sail on the horizon caused the spectre of indecision to raise itself in front of Lucky Jack Aubrey.
"I will grind whatever grist the mill requires in order to fulfill my duty."
"Whatever the cost?" Stephen had asked.
"Whatever the cost."
"Shall we beat to quarters, Sir?" Pullings asked, but Jack strode past him, not answering.
Even if the cost be so very, very dear?
-x-
Jack watched without a word as Padeen sponged the perspiration from Stephen's forehead, noting the waxen complexion, the bruised-looking flesh under the eyes, the slight hitching of breath as pain broke through even unconsciousness. Overhead, the rhythm of the ship's routine went on, but muted, as if the crew was holding its breath while awaiting his orders.
He had thought their ill-luck washed away with the rain. Let us be honest now, of all times, he corrected himself uncomfortably, you thought it washed away with the death of Hollom. He had begged forgiveness from both the Almighty and from the poor unfortunate young man the men (and he) had doomed as a Jonah, and when, as if by a miracle, the wind had immediately stirred, Jack had assumed himself heard and granted absolution.
But it would seem forgiveness had been denied. Not by the spirit of Mr. Hollom, Jack felt. Hollom had been too much of an eager-to-please milquetoast (too much convinced he was undeserving of any greater consideration, Jack's conscience smote him). No, Jack thought sadly to himself, young Mr. Hollom's forgiveness for their goading and driving him to self-murder would have come all too easily and likely with an unfair degree of pitiful gratitude in return.
The Heavenly Father however…
Sailors believed that the albatross was the spirit of a departed sailor. Could it be true? Had the bird been Hollom? Or had the Lord Above sent his creature for another purpose?
Stephen's words came back to haunt him: "But therein lies the problem: You're not accustomed to defeat, and chasing this larger, faster ship with its long guns is beginning to smack of pride."
Pride.
His pride.
Was this the Lord God's punishment for his own hubris? For this 'belligerent expedition', as Stephen called it?
Am I naught but a pawn then, Brother? An object used by the Almighty to either reward or punish you with? La, but there's a nice example of self-absorption.
Jack could not answer that, but as he made his way to the great cabin, the image of Stephen lying on the table, blood bubbling from the wound just under the rib and smearing the left side of the shivering man's belly as Higgins prodded him nervously, came before Jack's eyes. He recalled Stephen's words when after Wharley's death the Doctor had come to comfort him, as he always did in such situations: "That young man was a casualty of war."
Would the same be said of Stephen?
-x-
Stephen's cello accused him, its lonely and baleful presence set against the chair when it should have properly been stowed away a harsh indictment. Should Jack follow the Phantom, he knew that Stephen would never play - nor see, in all likelihood - it again. What struck Jack even more was when he asked himself if he would in turn ever touch his fiddle again, for how could he endure such a bitter solo with the memories of companionable and even joyous duets ever after forefront in his mind?
Birds. Birds, for all love! A flightless cormorant to set them at odds and an albatross threatening to make the separation final and irrevocable.
It had always been hard for Jack to fully comprehend what Stephen's passion for natural philosophy meant to him. For Jack, combing whatever wilderness for an obscure species of peccary or measuring the neck circumference of some monstrous tortoise - or gazing rapt at some bloody, blasted damn-it-all-to-Hades bird ! - was merely an inexplicable fad or fashion, a peculiar pastime of learned gentlemen. A hobby for the genteel, like gardening or politics. But for Stephen he knew it was more. For Stephen, it was his chosen avocation, the impossibly dear-to-his-heart calling, the way he believed he would leave his mark on the world and on history. The way he would choose to make his mark, if granted that choice of destiny. Stephen's love for examining the natural world's 'inestimable wonders' came from that same driving well-spring, that same romantic yet rational determination that his covert intelligence activities and his commitment to being a physician did.
Jack knew he would deny his friend again, should the opportunity present itself - it was too much to expect after all, too much by half, to purposely let himself to develop a shyness in the chase in order to indulgence his surgeon's muddle-headed wishes to look at birds - but he was heartily sorry for how he had gone about it. It had demonstrated a distinct want of feeling and he had seen easily what a cruel blow it had been to his dear Stephen.
But didn't it also serve to illustrate the problem facing him now? Sentiment was leaving his thoughts greatly in disorder; by must needs, a Captain could not overly dwell on losses, whether actual or potential, when pursuing his duty. Only a tyrant would toss away -
(toss them under the grindstone)
- his men's lives needlessly and without a second thought, but holding back, letting doubt and the wish to avoid conflict creep in, would have an invidious crippling effect. Here he sat, already second-guessing himself and his duty, when what was necessary was a clarity of vision, of singular focus. How was this different from Wharley, after all? And would not Wharley's death be in vain if they let the Acheron escape?
Did not Wharley's death save the ship in the storm, Joy?
Jack shifted, discomfited. When had his conscience grown so much to sound like Stephen?
"To follow orders with no regard of cost, can you really claim there's nothing personal in this call to duty?"
Aye, there's the rub.
Was it duty? Or was it the knowledge that if he broke off the chase now, he would be forced to admit it had been pride all along? That he had exceeded his orders weeks ago.
Could he truly account himself a good man, a good friend, by acting the scrub and being such a moral poltroon as to throw Stephen under the grindstone simply to save himself from having been seen to back down? And how could he expect the Lord Father's protection in his endeavours, after so arrogantly tossing aside the gift given to him, something so inexpressibly dear to him, something so vital to his existence as his brother's presence, all for the sake of an increasingly hollow-seeming victory - if victory there was to be, a matter of vast uncertainty and small odds - over a Captain who had thwarted him and shown himself to be just a little bit more clever?
Jack glanced at the two glasses of wine still left out. For Stephen is vital, he realized. He had been ever since that first voyage on the Sophie, and not merely for his ruse about pretending to be a plague ship to put off being boarded, or noticing the rearmost vessel in the convoy on the verge of being overtaken when their own look-out had not, or even the prodigious clever work with his saw that saved the gunner Mr. Day (Lazarus Day as he was known forever after).
No, Stephen's true worth, at least to Jack, had been in keeping his newly-made Captain on an even keel. The conception that he was no longer one of 'us' but of 'them' in terms of the ship's company, feeling the sudden deference that shut him off from the entire crew and made him an intruder everywhere below decks barring his own cabin and mess, and worst of all, the despair of failure that had come on him at not being able to succeed at what he sit out to do because he could not broach the chasm to understand the miseries inflicting men like Dillon and Marshall…Jack was not one to dwell on the negative or brood without (or even with) cause, but if not for Stephen he might have finished that first cruise with such decidedly low spirits as to have coloured the rest of his career.
Jack smiled thinly as he looked back again at Stephen's lonely cello. For awhile he had even grown to miss Stephen on that voyage; his years of service and knowledge of how a ship's company worked had blinded him to any other circumstance, and when he saw Stephen becoming part of the warrant-officers' little community, he stopped asking the Doctor if he'd like a little music in the great cabin, despite how much he longed to talk with Stephen about the crew or, indeed, about any subject. For Jack well knew that an invitation to the Captain's cabin was perceived as being nigh on an order, and he could not stand for Stephen to defer to him and attend him out of mere obligation and nothing more, because without equality, there was no true companionship.
But Stephen was not a Navy man, nor a seaman of any kind in fact, and to Jack's surprise Stephen's being an equal was not something the man intended to have dismissed so easily. It was Stephen who would often make the suggestion for a duet come an evening, and in so doing he not only grew to be Jack's much-needed friend and confidant, helping to dispel the loneliness and burden of command somewhat, he also become Jack's bridge to the rest of the crew. Being both their friend and yet vaguely outside the ship's hierarchy, in the end, Stephen serendipitously served as touchstone to both.
And perhaps most vitally of all, the Doctor had grown to serve as the voice of Jack's better angels.
"No, Jack, you've forgotten yourself."
Had he?
Jack grimaced; why should he be surprised at his conscience sounding so much like Stephen? For that was precisely what he was, for good or ill.
He wondered what the men thought. They had breathed their own sighs of relief at Hollom's death, some regretfully, some unashamedly, but nearly all happy in the belief that misfortune had now been banished. Would they have changed their minds now, or still fear a Jonah was among them? Of course, Stephen himself would have contended - had contended, in truth - that there was no such thing as a Jonah. He took a dim view of ill-omens and other such things. Stuff and nonsense, Jack. Sure, should we be forever hindered by fear and superstition?
Perhaps he was right. Certainly in matters apart from naval, the Doctor was the cleverest man aboard ship.
Mr. Howard was no doubt drunk when he shot me, just as Nagle was when he forgot to give the proper mark to Hollom. I've told you time and again to tip that blasted grog over the side.
If that does indeed prove the case with Mr. Howard, m'dear, I will certainly consider it this time, Jack thought in response.
Stephen was known throughout the service as his particular friend, but the crew esteemed Stephen highly, Jack was well convinced. They had a frank and open regard, even love, for him. The Doctor was their friend and companion, occasionally their champion, and, at times, even an object conferring prestige. Thinking of that first cruise together brought back memories of how the Sophies had beaten the men in a barge from a ship of the line upon the assertion that having a physician - not a surgeon, mind, but a proper physician - aboard gave them the right to tie up ahead of the barge. And beyond anything else, the Doctor was an inestimably valued commodity, for your average sailor did dearly love to be physicked.
However, ultimately, the crew's wishes could not enter into the equation. A leader could not be effective if he issued orders solely for the comfort and affection of his crew; he could listen to them, be concerned for them, but in the end he could not defer to them as if running the ship by some sort of consensus. Their desires for revenge or prize money could not come into it, and not even Nagle's potential disapprobation, possibly deserved, should be allowed to sway him. The situation was different altogether. The sacrifice of Wharley had been for the immediate preservation of the crew, but what would Stephen's death be for?
And should you attack this ship, Jack's conscience asked, for once this watch not sounding like Stephen but defending him all the same, what will the men do after the coming battle with no one to tend their wounds?
Well, now there was a thought, Jack considered. The crew's wishes could not come into the question, but their needs…
Jack listened to the creaking of the ship, the snap and flap of the sails, the sound of the men's voices, as all made their own music, utterly familiar and deeply loved. A sense of calm descended upon him; worry for Stephen still gnawed, but the familiar relief of having made a decision, of knowing what he must do, spread itself throughout his corpus.
"We are all God's creatures," he had declared at poor Hollom's abbreviated service, and while Jack knew he might face some uncomfortable questions at the Admiralty, he could not in good conscience throw away a man's life - perhaps the lives of many men - for the sake of his pride, and pride indeed was all it seemed now. Perhaps this was a sop to that part of him that ached to pursue the Acheron and worried that he was failing his duty, but it was true nonetheless. Stephen's worth - or any man's worth - was not merely wrapped up in what service he happened to provide his Captain or his crewmates, and it would not so lightly thrown aside, at least not by him, Jack vowed. And if logic or the Scripture allowed him to explain it away, he would seize the chance and by thankful for it.
He stood. "Pass the word for Mr. Pullings," he shouted, hearing the order swiftly repeated until it reached its intended receiver, and when the tall, dark-haired man stood before him, Jack commanded:
"Tom, take us back to the Galapagos!"
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Well, I can't say there's much action, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. I attempted to recreate the language of the books as best I could, but the situation of course is from the movie, and Jack's memories come from a mix of both.