Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

The wind, which at times was strong enough to send small pebbles flying through the air on the upper reaches of the Rock, did not interrupt Stephen’s habit of visiting the hospital every morning: he generally went there with Jacob, and on two separate occasions he had the pleasure of carrying out his particular operation of suprapubic cystotomy in the presence of the Physician of the Fleet and of Poll, who comforted the patient and passed the sutures. She told Jacob in private ‘that it was the neatest, quickest job she had ever seen - should never have believed it could have been done so quick, and with scarcely a groan. I shall light a candle for each of them, against the infection.’

Yet although the wind did not interfere with his work, which included a very minute dissection, with Jacob’s help, of the anomalous hand, it did away with his outdoor pleasure almost entirely. The migrant birds, always averse to crossing wide expanses of sea and wholly incapable of making headway against gales of this nature, were pinned down in Morocco; and in the sheltered hollows behind Cape Spartel twenty booted eagles might be seen in a single bush. He turned therefore to an occupation that fell into neither category and, it having been turning in his mind for some time, particularly at night, he quickly finished the second part of his suite, a forlan, copied it fair that afternoon and showed it to Jack in the evening.

Sitting there with the score tilted towards the lamp and what little light there was, with the small rain sweeping in swathes across the sea, his mouth now formed for whistling (but silent), now for a very deep humming where the ‘cello came in, Jack came to the end of the saraband, with its curiously reiterated melody. He gathered the sheets and reached for the forlan: ‘It is terribly sad,’ he observed, almost to himself - words he wished unsaid with all his heart.

‘Do you know any happy music?’ asked Stephen. ‘I do not.’

Embarrassment hung there in the great cabin for no more than a moment before it was dissipated first by a measured series of small explosions and then by Salmon, master’s mate, bursting in as the ship, heeling before a fresh blast, shot him through the door. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he cried, ‘beg pardon. Ringle’s come in. That was her, sir, saluting the flag.’

Divided between fury that the schooner could have come in unseen and unhailed and delight at her presence, Jack gave Salmon a cold glance. He saw that the young man was dripping to a most uncommon degree and called for his boat-cloak. As soon as he was on deck he saw why no lookout had reported a sail: even with this short fetch, the unceasing wind had built up a wall of broken water against the towering mole, a wall made even more impenetrable at deck-height by the fog-like rain and the disappearance of the sun’s faint, faint ghost behind the Rock. Furthermore, to shoot between the moles Ringle had shown no more than a scrap of stormjib right in, which her people were now stowing in a seamanlike fashion.

Her one-armed captain was already half-way up the frigate’s side, extraordinarily nimble with his hook. He carried a packet of letters in his bosom. ‘Come on board, sir,’ he said, saluting as he reached the quarterdeck.

‘How in God’s name did you get here so quick, William?’ cried Jack, shaking his one hand. ‘I had not looked for you this week and more. Come below - have a tot of brandy - you must be destroyed.’

‘Why, sir, you would not believe our run - this splendid breeze right aft or on our quarter day after day. But sir, before I say anything more than all’s well at home - much love from all hands’ - here he put down his packet - ‘I must tell you we saw Pomone’s boats being attacked by smallcraft under the lee of Spartel, where they were lying-to after a cruel long pull. We soon dealt with the Moors and offered the boats a tow. But Pomone’s first lieutenant said no, we must carry straight on and tell the flag that there were half a dozen Sallee rovers in Laraish waiting for the East-Indiamen lying-to just down the coast. He said he could certainly look after the local Moors if they came back, with the small arms we had given them, and he bade us shove off instantly - there was not a moment to lose.’

‘Very true,’ said Jack. ‘Mr Harding, strike topgallantmasts down on deck; take a warp out on to the mole; throw out the signal Squadron prepare to unmoor. I am going across to the flag in Mr Reade’s boat.’

It was not a long pull to the Royal Sovereign, but in spite of their hooded boat-cloaks both Jack and William Reade came up the side as wet as drowned rats. Waterlogged officers were by no means rare in the Royal Navy, however, and their appearance excited no comment: but when Jack, in a very few words, had outlined the position, the Captain of the Fleet whistled and said, ‘By God, I think you must see the Admiral.’

Jack repeated his statement to Lord Keith, who looked grave and asked, ‘What measures do you propose?’

‘My Lord, I propose leading the squadron out directly, making for Laraish. If the corsairs are still there I shall just make a show of force and stand on until I find the Indiamen, presumably still lying under the Sugar Loaf. If I find them engaged, clearly I disengage them: if not, I escort them westward and as near north as they can lie, leaving Dover to see them home.’

‘Make it so, Captain Aubrey.’

‘Aye-aye, sir. My best compliments to Lady Keith, if you please.’

On his way back the boat passed Dover and Pomone, both of which he hailed, directing them to make sail, to shape a course for Tangier, and to attend to his signals. It was not really night when he reached the Surprise, but the weather was so thick that he sent his orders by word of mouth to the rest of the squadron, adding that signals would now be made by lights and guns.

It gave him the liveliest pleasure to see how naturally the frigate came to life: battle-lanterns fore and aft, the signal midshipman and his yeoman overhauling the flares, the blue lights and apparatus, the ease with which the warp moved the ship’s six hundred tons and all her people towards the mole, and the totally professional, even nonchalant manner in which, edging round its head with barely steerage-way, they flashed out headsails, carried her clean through the gap and into the open sea, where she lay a-try, waiting for the others to join her. This they did, creditably enough on the whole, though their moorings had been ill-placed for this uncommon wind, while the mole itself and its overlapping neighbour, in the course of construction, were singularly awkward. But in the event they all came through, though Dover, setting a trifle too much sail at that unhandy turn, grazed the new stonework with enough force to wound her forward starboard mainchains. Her captain’s voice, cracked with fury, could be heard a great way downwind; yet even so he had enough right sailors, officers and ratings, aboard to make sail and steer the course shown by the Commodore’s signal, while the excellent bosun and his mates made good the worst of the damage, so that the frigate, though disfigured, did not disgrace herself as the squadron formed the line, heading for a point west of Tangier at no more than eight knots to give the Dover time to reinforce the main shrouds before their southward turn for Laraish.

They had scarcely cleared the Straits, leaving the glow of Tangier on the larboard quarter, before the rain stopped and the wind lessened, though it was still capable of a powerful gust from the same direction. ‘Mr Woodbine,’ said Jack to the master, ‘I believe we may send up the topgallantmasts and spread a little more canvas.’

This, with the help of a clearing sky over the main ocean, the light of a splendid moon and a more regular sea, was soon done; and the squadron, well in hand, at the proper cable’s length apart, ran down the Moroccan coast under courses and full topsails with an easier following sea and the wind on their larboard quarter; they were still in the order of their leaving, Ringle lying under Surprise’s lee, as became a tender.