MAES 19: Chasing a Dream
AN: For all that he’s something of a drama king, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for Lord Clonfert. His games of one-upmanship with Jack are a major theme in Mauritius command, so much so that I include only one quote to provide context, since there’s simply too many of them I could have used. Those who have read the book will know perfectly well what I mean.
Stephen nodded, and he looked at Jack with his pale, expressionless eyes, looking objectively at his friend, tall, sanguine, almost beefy, full of health, rich, and under his kindly though moderate concern happy and even triumphant. He thought, ‘You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair,’…
-The Mauritius Command, pg. 363, Norton Press paperback
Chasing A Dream
Clonfert lay, sweating and feverish, in his bed at the military hospital. McAdam had just been in to see him with another man, a Doctor Martin. Martin had wanted to sew flaps of healthy skin across his wound, but McAdam said he would prefer to consult with Doctor Maturin first.
Doctor Maturin. Even Aubrey’s surgeon was better than his own.
With great difficulty, Clonfert stifled a scream of pure helplessness. What would it take? How much more must he do to prove himself the equal, nay the better, of Jack Aubrey? Must he work all his life to wipe away the marks of dishonor he was certain Aubrey must still remember?
Their first service together, that cutting out expedition: must the badge of cowardice forever be affixed to his breast? He closed his eyes in remembered shame. He’d had every intention of following his orders, had been about to order his boats to row over and board, when a strange chill had overtaken him, his words had frozen in his throat, and he could only watch as Aubrey’s men boarded unassisted. He’d seen Aubrey take several wounds, seen many men die for want of support, but still he had not given the order.
It was only when it appeared that Aubrey might carry the day despite all that he had found his voice again. His own party had rowed as fast as ever they could; they had fulfilled their orders, somewhat late, but effectively. When it was over Clonfert had babbled to the injured Aubrey a multitude of excuses, trying to cover his embarrassment. Aubrey had not seemed at all interested, and Clonfert could only wonder what Jack had thought when, recovered from his fever, he had at last seen the official dispatch, which Clonfert had dictated.
Clonfert had known his letter was a lie, as well as any other man who had gone on the expedition. He may not have had to deal with Jack’s censure, but many of the other men remained his shipmates, or were so again later on. It had been one of these men, an officer of the Ramillies, who had made an insulting allusion to the incident, so angering Clonfert that he had struck the man, and, in turn, been dismissed from the service, perhaps the unhappiest time of his life, but which he had half-believed was some divine punishment for his actions.
He had tried as hard as ever he could to prove himself in his own eyes, as well as those of his fellows. After being reinstated, he had come to a conclusion: if he had not always been the best of men, he would strive to be so from then on. He had carefully considered the ways of great men he had known, and sought to copy them as much as he was able. It had not seemed to work as well as he had hoped, and he often caught particular looks from other captains, which suggested they were amused, rather than impressed, by the showy way he kept his ship and crew, and the grand manner in which he tried to conduct himself.
What was the missing element? He had often asked himself. Men who were Truly Great often had particular ways of dress and behavior, and no-one ever made mock of them. Indeed, they were held in almost universal admiration.
And then there was Aubrey. If not for his height and size, he would be wholly unremarkable to look at. Clonfert had seen him in threadbare uniforms and working clothes more often than full dress, in spite of his high position. If Clonfert had been made a Commodore, he would have made sure everyone knew it just by looking at him.
Those times Clonfert had dined with him, Aubrey’s cabin had been simple, not even so much as a framed watercolor on the wall to brighten the place. The Commodore had been perfectly easy with all his guests, managing the affair from his place at the head of the table: directing the flow of conversation, quashing fights before they could truly start, and playing the convivial host as much as a man at ease before his own hearth.
Yet in spite of his perfect simplicity of manner, Aubrey was a formidable man. From his fellow officers by both land and sea, Clonfert had heard little but praise for the Commodore: praise for his actions; praise for his conduct; praise for his naval and military genius; praise for the unpretentious and wholly competent manner with which he dealt with the squadron’s problems great and small.
If they had not shared the history they did, Clonfert might well have made Aubrey into one of his Examples to Follow. In all fairness, he had to admit Aubrey was a great man, even if he never made a point of showing it.
Perhaps that was the difference, Clonfert thought in despair. Perhaps those men who are Truly Great never seek to have it known, never look for praise from others and scarcely notice it even when they hear it. Perhaps such greatness is not a thing that can be actively striven for, but must simply exist from the start, and any attempts to capture it by those who do not naturally possess it must end in failure.
His mind turned to a fable his nurse had told him. He could hear her old and creaking voice in his child’s ear:
“Two Bulls were fighting furiously in a field, at one side of which was a marsh. An old Frog living in the marsh trembled as he watched the fierce battle.
"What are you fraid of?" asked a young Frog.
"Do you not see," replied the old Frog, "that the Bull who is beaten, will be driven away from the good forage up there to the reeds of this marsh, and we shall all be trampled into the mud?"
It turned out as the Frog had said. The beaten Bull was driven to the marsh, where his great hoofs crushed the Frogs to death.”
Nurse had patted his head and said, “Always remember my dear: When the great fall out, the weak must suffer for it.”
Clonfert had never really liked that story. It seemed to him that any bull could never have stepped on a frog without seeing it, and if he had seen it, would certainly have avoided it. He had remarked on this to Nurse the next time she had told him the story, and she had laughed and said, “What, a great enormous bull who is brooding over his defeat, notice a little frog sitting below him on the ground? Maybe if the bull were not so caught up in his own business, he might have seen the frog, but then again he may have simply tried to step on the frog on purpose, so as to get him out of the marsh.”
Why this story should have occurred to him now, Clonfert did not know. He was too tired to ponder it, however, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
He dreamed he was green and slimy, and hopping along on four legs. Suddenly he heard great heavy steps approaching. He looked behind him and saw an enormous yellow bull with blue eyes coming toward him. He could not hop away, for his legs felt frozen, and a familiar chill spread over him. In vain he waved his arms and tried to get the bull’s attention, for it would certainly trample him. For all his efforts, the bull paid no notice, its bright blue eyes fixed on a distance far beyond the little frog in its path. A great hoof lifted and came down-
A sudden roaring burst through his dream, popping it like a bubble. It sounded like a mob, all cheering loudly.
“My lord? My lord!”
The voice of McAdam broke across his ear, and he shifted his gaze from the ceiling to his surgeon.
“What is it, what are they cheering for?” he rasped through a dry throat.
McAdam silently offered him water. Clonfert drank greedily, and McAdam said quietly, “The French have surrendered at last, my Lord. Aubrey will be here soon, and you shall have your Nereide back.”
Clonfert’s whole body seemed to freeze again. That familiar chill overtook him completely, and his hand trembled so badly he dropped the glass, and it shattered on the floor. McAdam hastily bent to pick up the pieces.
It was a nightmare, Clonfert told himself. It couldn’t be true: all that had gone before and now this as well?
When Aubrey had been appointed Commodore to his squadron, Clonfert had been secretly happy at the chance to prove himself to Jack Aubrey, to let the man see with his own eyes that he was not a coward, that whatever mistakes he may have made he had gone beyond them; had remade himself in a better image.
But it had not happened. This dream he had chased for so long had proved impossible to reach. He had done everything he could: fought with sword and gun, volunteered for service, stretched himself to the breaking point, lost his ship and others, seen most of his crew die in bloodiest action-and for what? For failure at the last. Jack Aubrey had outdone him again, seemingly without effort. It was he, not Clonfert who would accept the enemy’s surrender, who would be remembered as the hero who had brought about the conquest of Mauritius. He probably had no idea how strongly Clonfert felt about his, how very much his hopes had depended on helping to bring the campaign to a successful end.
A harsh laugh escaped him, and he raised a hand to his face. Nurse had been right all along, it seemed: the bull never had the least idea the frog was there.
“Never, by God!” he said harshly, a black resolution overtaking him. “Not from Jack Aubrey!” From anyone else, from the Devil himself even, but not from Jack Aubrey! “Run out, McAdam, and see are they coming!”
The surgeon stepped out the door. McAdam had told him time and again to leave the bandage alone, that until his artery wall healed properly it was the only thing keeping him from bleeding to death. With a savage jerk, Clonfert grasped the bandage and tore it from his neck.
He felt the linen, adhered to him by clotted blood, tear away, tear open the thin wall of the artery it was stuck to, felt his blood begin to pour.
As the faintness in his head was replaced by the darkening of his vision, he composed his features and stared at the ceiling.
I surrender. I have no more to give.