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A member of the night watch crept into Stephen's cramped quarters at shift change. As Stephen had requested, the sailor gave his report on his captain's condition: "He's been out on the deck for the last two hours, sir."
Stephen was still not accustomed to the sudden rousing and sleeping of navy life, but the news was so predictable that it felt like an extension of his own nightmares. "Is he dressed warmly, at least?"
The sailor hesitated. It was clear that he did not know, and did not want to lie to Stephen, but wanted more than anything to go to bed.
"Never mind that," said Stephen. "Thank you for your consideration."
"Oh, for you, sir? Anything." He clapped his hand against his cheek. Stephen had pulled two abscessed molars not long ago, and the man's disposition had turned golden, especially towards Stephen. Stephen noted this pattern often in surly patients cured of a lingering pain: a miraculous improvement in temperament, earthly angels the morning after they damned him to hell. This did not bother him, of course. He was soothed at the reminder that man was a creature of circumstance, and that improvement of the spirit was tied to the improvement of the material conditions. In nature, in man, in society: where pain fermented, evils brewed.
What bothered him was the disproportionate gratitude towards him, personally. And it bothered him, too, that he could not wish this sailor a proper goodnight, because he did not remember the sailor's name.
Jack was not dressed warmly, or at least, he was not dressed warmly enough. He'd had the soundness of mind to put on his oilskin watch coat: a woolen greatcoat that reached his ankles, doused with linseed oil to waterproof it. But he had not buttoned it, nor had he tied his hair away. Both his hair and coat floated away from him in the wind, showing his thin white nightshirt and bloodstained forehead.
"You shouldn't be in the night air," said Stephen, joining him at the rail. "You've lost too much blood."
Jack had long since stopped jumping with surprise when Stephen joined him for his walks, but he still smiled as though it was a special delight. "I couldn't sleep."
"I will dose you."
"Laudanum doesn't agree with me. Makes me feel half-dead in the morning." The black breeze cracked against the sails. "This is the only sleeping draught I need."
Stephen turned his collar up against the wind, bringing his shoulders closer to his ears. "Where are we?"
"The Tyrrhenian Sea. There are the Aeolian Islands, can you make them out?" Jack pointed into utter darkness.
"Yes," said Stephen.
"See that little puff of smoke?" Again, utter darkness; again, Stephen agreed. "That's Vulcan Island, with the volcano smoking like Sir Walter Raleigh. That's where King Aeolus kept the four winds and received Odysseus, so they say."
It was Polybius, if Stephen remembered correctly, who had identified the mythic kingdom of bronze cliffs with Vulcan Island. Pliny the Elder, however, wrote om his Natural History that the neighboring island Stromboli was the true realm of Aeolus, and Stephen was inclined to agree. A rocky waste like Vulcan Island could not sustain life, four winds or no, while Pliny wrote that Stromboli was somewhat green, with liquid fires and inhabitants who could tell which way the wind would blow by observing the volcano smoke.
He thought to raise this point before he recalled that Jack had said "they," not Polybius. "They" referred to sailors, captive corsairs, men with mouths and brains rotted by scurvy. Jack's Aeolus was not myth or history, but a sea legend.
In the time since he'd considered this, Stephen had just been able to make out a faint glow and the shape of smoke. He squinted, trying to turn it into a volcanic castle.
"Stephen," said Jack, "was this the first time you've shot a man dead?"
Stephen appreciated the phrasing. Every other crewman, sympathetic, had said something like The first kill always sticks in your craw, doctor. He appreciated the sentiment, and it was probably best that no one saw him as an experienced killer. Jack, without evidence, knew the truth, yet he would not allow himself to believe it unless Stephen gave him permission.
"No," said Stephen, "but it was the first time I've shot a boy dead."
Today's prize, the French ship Revanche, was a hard-earned one. The French captain, so Stephen was told, had refused to yield against all reason, despite Jack's appeals in broken English, French, Spanish, whatever came to mind after an hour of combat. While the captive crew of the Revanche watched, the French captain had hurled himself at Jack as if he meant to grapple, not stab. Jack, surprised, had held out his sword, and the French captain had skewered himself.
A dozen Sophies with mild injuries, no deaths; twenty Revanches injured, thirty dead, ten like to die.
When Stephen had come to Jack's cabin well past midnight, he'd found him mostly whole, but exhausted. The tricky sabre cut across Jack's forehead bled impressively down his face and shirt. He'd only shrugged when Stephen asked how he felt. He'd been silent, too, while Stephen made five neat sutures; he'd pressed his head into Stephen's chest to give him a stable scalp to sew. When Stephen had finished, he'd realized that Jack was asleep, had nodded off impossibly in the middle of his surgery. It had never happened before, and Stephen had been loath to move and ruin such a strange miracle.
But he'd seen something moving in the corner of Jack's room, a shape that quickly became a human body holding a dirk pointed at Jack's bare back.
Reflecting, he was amazed at his own rashness. There had been no way to know that Jack's pistol, abandoned beside him on the desk, was still loaded, still primed. There had been no reason to aim for the assailant's heart instead of the outstretched arm. It would've been wiser to grab Jack's shoulders and pull him away, let him handle it as a captain and seasoned fighter.
"A Frenchman told me that the boy was their captain's illegitimate son," said Stephen. "The captain could not stand being apart from him. He was a bright boy, they said. He trained the ship's cat to hiss when it heard the word 'English'."
Jack grunted in a near-laugh. "I would like to meet this cat."
"They said he drowned it before sneaking into your cabin."
There was no answer to that kind of information, and thankfully, Jack knew it. He just prodded gently at his forehead, near the stitches. It was a natural instinct to touch a healing wound, test its soundness, but not an agreeable one.
"Leave it be," said Stephen.
"It feels very neat," said Jack. "I had hoped for a dashing scar, but you've done too good a job."
"If you want me to let you bleed freely next time, you need only tell me, and I will save myself the trouble."
"I didn't say thank you for sewing me up," said Jack. There had been no time for that. While Stephen was stupidly trying to staunch bleeding from the heart, Jack had knelt beside the boy, put the French captain's sword in his hand, and said the Our Father until the boy was dead. "And for…"
A mean wind saved Jack from saying it, and Stephen from hearing it. It was strong enough to make even Jack stumble, and Stephen held his shirt collar closed at his throat in a stupid attempt to keep warm. His apron had done an especially poor job today. His shirt and waistcoat had been soaked in blood: his crewmates', Jack's, the bastard son's. He'd changed into his last clean shirt, but found that all his other clothes were soiled with old bloodstains, old bile. He had not the soundness of mind to put any of them on, so he'd slept in his shirtsleeves, covered in clammy sweat.
This air on deck was sucking the fever out of him, driving him into chills. He would be useless in the morning.
"It's cold," he said. "I must go to bed."
"Here, you should-" Jack unshouldered his coat. The moon shone through the weak fabric of his nightshirt.
"No," said Stephen, "don't be ridiculous. I'm going to bed."
"We'll get a fair view of the island soon, I'll be sorry if you miss it." He held the coat out in front of him. "It's no trouble, I'm warm enough."
He'd warmed the coat from the inside out. The smell of linseed oil -- a nutty, herbal smell, a little like sunflower seeds -- bloomed outwards, the same way a lady's perfume blossomed at the heat of her skin.
"No, Jack," said Stephen. "I'm going to bed."
Jack held the coat out for a few seconds more, frowning, then folded it over his arm. Inexplicably, he laughed.
"What?" asked Stephen.
"Nothing. It's just that you'll…" He abandoned that line of thought, looking towards the islands. "You're a most unusual friend, Stephen."
Stephen knew what he was going to say: You'll kill a child to save my life, but won't take a coat from me.
"Goodnight, Jack," he said. "Button your coat."
"Goodnight, Stephen," said Jack. "I will."