Fic: The Broken Lock

[unsentimentalf]

Title: The Broken Lock
Author: Unsentimental Fool
Fandom: Master and Commander
Characters: Stephen Maturin, Jack Aubrey
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,200
Summary: Stephen is caught in flagrante delicto, and faces the most serious of consequences
Notes: Set early in The Mauritius Command, with a few minor changes. Thanks to alltoseek for the invaluable beta.



"I would have closed the door!"

Jack was standing stiff, head bowed to mind the low beams overhead, his hands clasped behind his back, swaying a little with the force of his agitation. He said again, with heavy emphasis. "Closed the damn door! No decent officer would have done otherwise!"

Stephen had no reason not to believe him. He sighed. "But they did not."

They were both in the tiny cabin in which he slept aboard H.M.S. Boadicea, scene of the incident and now the place of his confinement. He'd caught a glimpse of the Marine's red uniform outside as Jack had charged in like an Indian tiger. Now Jack was glaring at him as if he was one of the hands and a flag had just been flown upside down. Which, Stephen supposed, was as good an analogy as any.

"Just... Just tell me, Maturin. What in damnation were you really doing? This is to do with your work, obviously..."

"Jack!" Stephen warned, but Jack would not be stopped.

"You may not be able to tell the others, Stephen, but you can trust my discretion. Absolutely. Just tell me it was nothing but to amuse the Frenchman. I won't ask more."

Stephen was shocked to his secretive core by the strong, if fleeting, urge to confess what he had been at. Not for himself, although he suspected that he was in very serious trouble indeed, but to comfort his poor agitated friend. He did not, of course, trust Jack's discretion on this. Aubrey might have the best of intentions now but would he really stand by silent and let Stephen take whatever no doubt barbaric punishment was due if he thought that he had been assured of his companion's innocence?

"Alas," he said, aiming for lightness of tone, "You think too much of me, Jack. There are times when each of us are all too human in our desires. It was unfortunate that the lock was broken."

"Unfortunate!" Jack stepped forward, hand raised. He was angry now, terribly angry, but even so Stephen was certain that he would not hit a man fettered hand and foot. "When they hang you at the yard arm, will you still think it unfortunate?"

"Doubtless I will. Exceptionally unfortunate. Let us hope it does not come to that."

"How can it not? On the ship, Maturin, the ship itself, and at sea! We can be no more than five days out of the Cape; could you not at least have waited? These things are not cared about so much on shore. Now I have two officers and a man waiting to testify at your court-martial and the hands unhappy and fractious on your behalf!"

"Is that so?" Stephen had not expected the latter, though he liked to think that he was well enough considered on board. No wonder Jack looked so wretchedly furious.

Jack waved a hand in irritated dismissal. "My concern. You have greater ones; if they find you guilty you will certainly hang. I cannot release you without I face a court-martial myself, and Sophie stands to lose everything should they hang me too. Sophie-what will she think, Stephen? You never gave either of us cause to imagine this of you, in all these years!" He was shaking his huge head now, baffled. "Certain you were not one to chase ladies in port, but your affections once bestowed seemed natural enough."

"Jack!" Stephen warned again, sharp this time. He felt, with an odd detachment, that should Aubrey bring up Diana in this room, in this conversation, then he would have no choice but to call the man out, fetters or no. Jack was no great reader of minds, unless the mind in question was commanding an enemy ship, but he caught enough of Stephen's icy mood to change tack.

"I have no control over the terms of the court-martial, of course. You will hope for captains who are fair."

Stephen snorted, a quiet laugh. "A fair man will see me hanged for sure. If you would do me a favour, my dear, find me ones who are easily swayed by pretty words. Where is Baudin?"

Jack's face clouded further. "Confined below."

"You cannot intend to court-martial a prisoner of war, surely?"

"No. I intend to hand him over to the governor at Cape Town. I warrant that he will be tried there, in as just a way as not even the French could complain of."

Stephen tilted his head, frowning. "We- you- must stay with the course that we had set. The Frenchman must be allowed to give his parole and be exchanged in the Cape; it is vital that he pass onto French intelligence the information that we have permitted him to uncover. This incident changes nothing, Jack, as far as Baudin is concerned."

Jack shook heavy locks, still angry. "I will not stand here and harken to you pleading for your lover. I have a ship close to disarray and a heavy blow coming. When there is more news I will see you have it." The heavy door pulled to behind him and there was silence except for the distant shouts and thumps that always accompanied a ship underway.

Stephen lay back in his chair, immediately deep in thought. This was a mess, no doubt about it. He had been hoping, deep down but without much conviction, that Jack would be able to wave an imperious captain's hand on awakening to his precipitous arrest and have him released. It seemed not.

An agent in wartime might anticipate any manner of death, many of them unpleasant, but to be hanged by his own side for sodomy; that was not either useful or brave. No-one gained by this except Stephen's enemies, and he was determined to give them no cause for gleeful celebration. He would have to avoid this fate, somehow.

Jack had taken the revelation of Stephen's nature (or that small part of it at least) moderately well, he thought, all things considered. He suspected his friend to hold no particular animosity towards men of his kind, but Jack did hold to the general and mostly unconsidered view that such behaviour was sinful and that natural law required severe punishments. Yet Stephen had known Jack deliberately ignore inconvenient truths- closing the door, as the man had put it- rather than uncover evidence of sodomy within his officers or crew. On the other hand, Stephen had oft heard him freely boast of getting rid of men suspected of the vice to other ships.

Stephen mused a little on the inconsistency of man and this man in particular. No doubt Jack would be furious for some time at being put in the position of having to acknowledge his friend's degenerate sexual relations at all. Yet at the same time Stephen guessed that he would condemn Stephen roundly for keeping him in the dark for so many years about his occasional (and it was no more than occasional) penchant for the Greek vice. Both of these positions, while technically contradictory, were at least comprehensible to Stephen. It was the men and women who bayed eagerly for the blood of deviants that did them no harm that he could not understand. Jack Aubrey would surely not have been a friend so dear if he had been one of those.

So, Jack should come round, surely, in time. Jack would do him no harm, for certain, and, angry or no, would doubtless go further than was wise to do him good. This affair would damage the captain's reputation whether Stephen escaped the noose or not; too many people knew him as Aubrey's particular companion. Obvious inferences would be drawn and tongues would wag, damn them.

It was no good; he could not think of anything helpful this evening. The act of coitus, so rarely undertaken, always felt as if it drained him of intellect, then the shock of discovery and arrest, the worry about Jack and about himself- he needed sleep and a clear head to see where any slight advantage might lie. He shuffled inelegantly over to the small bed, the sheets still in disarray and damp in places. A brief memory of the feel of Baudin's skin, the push of muscle against muscle; not helpful, he told himself as he curled up as well as the irons would let him under the blankets and did his best to fall asleep.

Stephen was woken by a knock and lantern. Richardson, one of the young midshipmen, and a couple of hands.

"Blow's coming up, sir." The boat was already rocking slowly with a swell, timbers creaking. They cleared his cabin around him without another word, casting more than one or two curious glances at him.

"My compliments to the Captain, and please advise him that I am ready-" Stephen shook the fetters slightly, "-all but ready to take my post if needs be."

"Sir." Richardson failed to meet his eye as the boy left.

Nothing then for half an hour except the gradual increase in the sound of wind and waves, then Trollope, the second lieutenant who had come upon him at such a disadvantage, came in with four Marines.

"Captain says you may take your post, under guard." His voice was harsh with dislike and accusation but he wielded the key, let Stephen gather his equipment together and join the unusually quiet group awaiting the inevitable arrivals.

It was a long storm, hard on both ship and men. Contusions by the score, broken bones, concussions, suspected and obvious. Three men were hit by the foremast falling; one of them never made it as far as the doctor. One of the youngest midshipman, Carren, was brought below after several hours, soaked to the skin and too cold to speak or shiver; the men who brought him were in little better state.

By then no-one seemed to recall Stephen's disgrace, not even the Marine guards who had long since been pressed into assistance with the wounded. When the wind and waves finally eased off a little Captain Aubrey came down to speak quietly to his doctor.

"The worst is done now, though our losses are hard; we have lost two men; McDiamond and Ferrent, and the fore and mizzen masts. What have you here?"

So brief and impersonal; not like Jack. Stephen sighed inwardly, responded in kind.

"Twelve. Allen may not regain consciousness; if he does not wake by noon I must drill. Four merely need watching for concussion. Carren must be kept warm and dry and above all no spirits. Edwards' hand is crushed beyond repair; it shall come off now. The others have bones fractured and muscles torn: they are like to repair in good time."

"You are still needed here, then."

Stephen glanced around the crowded room, the men too still or writhing in pain. "Of course."

"Very well. Carry on." Jack turned from him to speak to the injured men, each in turn.

Over the next day most of the men were discharged from Stephen's care. Allen never awoke, despite his careful trepanning, and died during the following night. Edward's hand came off without trouble, and Carren was soon bright and chattering again. By the following morning the sick bay had only a couple of broken legs and Stephen was desperately weary for sleep.

Jack must have found some time to rest; when he bent his head to enter his eyes were brighter again, his face smoother of care, but he frowned when he saw Stephen, and listened to his impersonal report with the same detachment as before.

"How is the ship?" Stephen asked.

"Limping along. We will put in along the African coast for repairs as soon as may be; I will not take her around the Cape without her full complement of masts."

"I suppose that I may not leave the ship? The western coast has a plethora of wading birds along its margins."

"No." Jack said heavily, the worry returning. "I must confine you to your cabin again until we reach the Cape."

Stephen mourned a brief second for lost lesser flamingoes and Anastomus lamelligerus. "Can I at least convince you that the fetters are superfluous? Without them I may have the small comfort of work on my notebooks."

Jack nodded, turned away, his feet heavier than usual on the ladder upwards to the open air.

Stephen fell asleep as soon as he reached his cabin, slept until breakfast arrived. He ate that whilst contemplating the still blue sea through the porthole and ruminating deeply about the unpleasant subject of his confinement.

There was no help for it. He could not risk the court-martial. He must contrive to escape when the ship put in for repairs. Jack would be distraught that he do something so dishonourable as desert, but he fancied, or at least hoped, that Aubrey would be even more put out of sorts if Stephen were to be hanged. Between the devil and the deep blue sea he'd choose the wide ocean to get himself lost in.

He had barely opened his notebooks, there to give the impression of work while he made plans, when a pale Carren brought the Captain's compliments in a shaky voice and would he step out on deck directly? He came up with his Marine escort, blinking against the strong sun, and stopped.

Stephen was all too familiar with the sight of the ship's crew drawn up to witness a flogging. For a wild moment he wondered if he was to be the victim, but a jerk of Jack's head summoned him to his captain's side. Jack's face was drawn and stern.

"Remove your shirt."

Martinez. Stephen had last seen the young sailor, barely more than a boy, as he goggled at him from the door with the broken lock. He was clearly terrified and Stephen almost protested, but he didn’t know the lad’s transgression and he could not challenge Aubrey here, before the entire silent company.

A dozen lashes and it was over. Jack looked down on the lad crying unstoppably, looking more like a child now than ever.

"Now you will apologise to Dr Maturin."

Stephen accepted the halting and inaudible apology graciously, slightly wiser but still not clear as to how this had come about. Was this Jack's subterfuge? The hand’s apology was followed by one even less audible from a young midshipman, who had clearly just been caned with a ferocity near to match the flogging. Stephen was still none the wiser as to their actual offence.

It was not yet all done. Trollope stepped forward.

"Dr Maturin. I may have mistaken..."

"Must have mistaken" Jack growled at his lieutenant.

"I must have mistaken the nature of the medical procedure that you were engaged upon. You have my profound apologies for any unintentional insult."

Stephen had seldom heard such an antipathetic apology. He was tempted for a second to call the man out right there, but that was but to exchange one breach of the Articles of War with another. The purpose of this playacting was to clear his name in front of the whole ship. He would take it, and deal with Trollope if need be at a quieter time and place. So he merely nodded stiffly at the lieutenant.

"Dismiss all hands." Jack ordered. "Doctor, I will be taking the boat out shortly. Will you join me?"

"I believe that Mr Hellick and Martinez may appreciate my professional services first. After that I am at your disposal, Captain."

Stephen watched Jack rowing hard and competently away from the ship. His specimen nets filled the bottom of the boat between then. The sky was empty of both clouds and birds but he could see the ghost of the African shore far to his right. Starboard. Or was it larboard? It was on Jack's left, after all.

"Shall I throw the nets out now?"

"Yes, if you like." Jack shipped the oars, helped Stephen with the armfuls of netting. That done, they sat back and looked at each other.

"What happened?" Stephen asked. "Was that your persuasion?"

Jack wrinkled his nose. "Do you think I would bully children into lying for you?"

"No, I do not. So what happened?"

"Other people bullied them. I know that the poor lads have been harassed since your arrest." Jack sighed. "They came to me this morning and said that it had been a jest; they had seen you do nothing but handle the Frenchman as you might any patient."

They had seen much more than than, Stephen knew, and Jack must know it too. "Did you challenge them?"

Jack blushed slightly. "I told them that they had told a wicked, wicked lie about you and they would be punished severely. They did not recant, and I challenged them no further. I would not force them to testify against you, Stephen, wherever the truth might lie."

"And Trollope?"

Jack looked across at his ship. "He held to what he claimed to have seen. I told him in the end that without the lads' testimonies it was one officer's word against another and I would not send you to court-martial on no better evidence, nor would I allow the accusation to lie."

He reddened further. "I did bully him into the retraction, I am sorry to say, and it was a dishonourable act, but he came to no real harm for it. I am most dreadfully sorry for the flogging, but they claimed to have lied to their captain and to have slandered you most dreadfully. I had no choice at all."

There was a silence, then Jack's voice again, harsher now. "So, two boys did nothing but report what they saw and they lose the skin from their backs. A bloody good officer does the same and is humiliated before the whole company. Your reputation will never truly recover even after this morning's farce. I hope the sating of your lust was worth it, Maturin."

Stephen caught sight of a large seabird skimming between the ship and the far shore. Not close enough to make out its species. An albatross? Too close to land, surely.

"Stephen! Are you thinking of your damn flamingoes again?"

"No," he said, honestly, frowning at the captain, his heart no lighter for a decision made. "There will be plenty of time for me to watch lesser flamingoes now. You must put me off at Capetown."

"Why must I?"

"Think, Jack! You said yourself that my reputation is certain after this. You must cut me loose or yours will swiftly follow."

Jack looked honestly surprised. "No-one could for a minute imagine that you and I... That's ridiculous!"

Stephen felt oddly slighted by that. His response was sharper than he'd intended. "Ridiculous or not, men will believe anything at all given the slightest provocation, and this is more than slight. I will not be the cause of your career's wreckage and poor Sophie's beggarage. You will put me off or I will simply go."

Jack's voice rose in temper. "And if you threaten desertion again I will have you in irons from here to Mauritius! For Christ's sake, Maturin, will you not behave like a Navy officer occasionally and not like a spoilt child! You will stay on my ship when you are ordered, you will fulfil all the duties of a commissioned surgeon and you will keep your hands and your privates to yourself whilst you are aboard. Is that understood?"

Stephen did not appreciate being barked at and insulted in such a crude manner and said so. Jack demanded to know what could be cruder than a filthy deceptive sodomite. They might have come to blows except that the boat was very small and their quarrel was being witnessed, though hopefully not overheard, by a dozen hands and Mr Richardson in Boadicea's rigging. So instead they fell silent, glaring at each other across the shipped oars.

"I am sorry." Stephen finally said, very reluctantly. "It was a grave misjudgement. The lock..."

"Bugger the lock!" Jack said forcefully. "All these days I have feared to lose you, Stephen, over something so unutterably stupid. You are an intelligenc..an intelligent man, for Christ's sake, with your share of the Devil’s cunning; how could you get caught by Trollope of all men?"

Stephen opened his mouth but Jack raised a hand. "And don't quote the damned lock at me again, either!"

"In that case I have no explanation whatsoever."

Jack smiled a little at that, at last. "It was a damned shock, you know. You've kept that quiet a long time. I find that most men give themselves away, if you know what to look for."

The idea of Jack considering himself an eagle-eyed discoverer of men's secrets rather tickled Stephen. "There is little enough to give away in my case. I am hardly a satyr when it comes to either sex. With the exception of the occasion of the broken lock your ships have always remained inviolate temples to chastity as far as I am concerned."

It was remarkably close to the absolute truth. Although he might be used to excursions with a civilised amount of time spent on solid ground in passable company, rather than the months that Boadicea had spent wandering the near empty Atlantic in search of the correct type of wind, abstinence to this degree would not usually have begun to try him. Unfortunately as a covert intelligence agent he had been required to spend far too much time alone with a charming French opponent. He would never have risked the seduction if it had not been necessary for the role he had undertaken, but he had in all honesty found it a singularly pleasant task, at least until the interruption.

Jack let out a huffed sigh. "You cannot know how much of a balm that provides for my soul, Stephen. To be honest with you, I had been fretting these past few days about some of the men we have sailed with. I didn't like to think of you... Of them... Well, you know."

Stephen thought that he might possibly know. He smiled at Jack with some affection. "There is still the matter of your reputation. I should not stay."

Jack shook his head, laughing. "Come now! A man would have to be insane to think Captain Jack Aubrey anything but a red-blooded lover of women. We will have to risk falling prey to the gossip of the mentally disturbed. I need you on board, Stephen. There will be no more talk of leaving Boadicea at Capetown or anywhere else."

Stephen nodded. He still thought it unwise from Jack's point of view, but from his own it was entirely satisfactory. He did not want to leave.

"But," Jack said, more grimly, "your French spy must be given the chance to make his escape tonight when we make landfall. I will not have him on the ship a day longer. I do not want to tell you what dark thoughts I have been having, knowing about him and you."

Stephen agreed wholeheartedly, not unhappy at all at the idea that Jack had been fretting about his liaison with Baudin. "Should we raise the nets now?"

"We should. The wind is rising a little, and I want to make land as soon as possible."

They pulled in a mixture of bright fish and a couple of long legged crabs, and Stephen sorted them while Jack rowed back. After a few minutes he stopped to watch Jack; that substantial figure flexing well-defined browned muscles without ever a hint of self-consciousness. Something had changed between them, undoubtedly; something more than a secret unwillingly given up. Stephen was not yet sure whether the change was just in himself, or not. Jack Aubrey was undoubtedly a red-blooded lover of women but Stephen knew green-eyed jealousy when he saw it.

"You look most serious still, Stephen. What are you thinking on?"

"Lesser flamingoes," Stephen said, firmly and with utter mendacity. " Remarkable birds. You will like them, I promise."

"I am sure they will be wonderful beyond compare. But let me have my masts first, I beg of you."

Stephen smiled. "Time enough for both, my dear."

There was time enough to consider everything, time to act, if he chose to act, slowly and with enormous caution. Jack was still no-one but Jack Aubrey and he was always and most definitely still Stephen Maturin, and not inclined in the slightest to sentiment or wishful thinking.

"The Lesser Flamingo, Phoenicopterus minor, can be distinguished from the Greater Flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus- you recall those, undoubtedly, Jack, from our time in India?"

"Big pink storks," Jack said, absently.

"If you must," Stephen said, sighing. "Distinguished by the extensive blackness on the bill." As the boat reached Boadicea he was still attempting to enlighten Jack as to the appearance, taxonomy and habits of the lesser flamingo, but his sharp eye caught the nearby crew exchanging satisfied glances as they came amicably aboard. Clearly if there was now a taint to their relationship the Boadiceans did not care. Stephen was not inclined to superstition but he took that for an omen, nonetheless. There would be storms to come over this for both of them, without any doubt, but he chose to believe that they might weather them, somehow.