Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

Instantly the ship’s side shot forth an enormous volume of sound and an immense smoke-bank lit with brilliant flashes - smoke that drifted evenly over the Cerbère, which replied through it with an even greater roar - greater, though as Jack noticed with satisfaction, not quite so exactly uniform.

Stephen Maturin, worn limp as an old and dirty pair of stockings after countless hours of negotiation, mostly in Slavonic languages that he understood no more than Turkish and that had to be translated, all in a stifling atmosphere, with people playing shawms outside to prevent the possibility of eavesdropping - shawms in no key known to him or range of intervals - had lain flat on his cot the moment he reached it, plunging instantly into a stupor rather than a Christian sleep.

From this his body leapt up at the first prodigious crash, leaving its wits behind it: and when the two came together he found that he was sitting by the door, his body as tense as a frightened cat’s. Understanding and recollection came with the next roaring broadside; he recognized his dimly-lit surroundings and groped his way on deck.

He arrived for the Frenchman’s next reply. Above the smoke the whole low arch of the sky was brilliantly lit - the Algerine merchantmen could be seen frantically making sail, innumerable lights on shore running about, the whole city clear in a momentary blaze of light.

Surprise drew ahead and now it was Pomone’s turn, her eighteen-pounders making an even more shocking din, improbably loud: again and again, on both sides, the almost simultaneous flashes lit the sky - astonished sea-birds could be seen, flying in a wild, uncertain fashion.

‘Well, Doctor,’ said the Commodore, just beside him, ‘I am afraid you had but a short nap of it: but we shall soon have done - Mr Woodbine, I believe we may go about.’ And aside to Stephen, as the bosun piped All hands about ship, ‘There is that big Kutali xebec, flying in a state of dreadful concern, as though this were the end of the world, ha, ha.’

‘It sounds very like it, and looks very like it,’ said Stephen, and he muttered, ‘...solvet saeclum in favilla.’

Now they were on the other tack, running gently down the side of Cerbêre: it was the turn of the larboard guns and this time they were so close that some of the Frenchman’s smouldering wads came aboard, to be put out with a great deal of laughter, and indignant, often very cross cries of ‘Silence, fore and aft’ from the midshipmen.

Yet another tack, yet another apocalyptic series of shattering broadsides - renewed screeching, howling and running about on shore - distant drums and trumpets, church bells ringing - and having given the order to reload with right cartridge and ball, and to house the guns, Jack carried straight on, shaping a course for the Canale di Spalato, followed by Cerbère and Pomone, with Ringle under his lee. He called for stern-lanterns and top-lights, desiring Mr Harding to dismiss the starboard watch once courses had been set, and went below himself, ludicrously walking on tiptoe. In the cabin - the bed-place - that they had shared for so many years, he found Stephen, not dead asleep - far from it - but writing.

‘I hope I do not interrupt you,’ he said.

‘Not at all. I am only setting down a succinct account of my conversation in Spalato with certain organizations for the benefit of the Admiral’s intelligence officer in Malta; and as soon as it is done, my duty, as I see it, is to go to Algiers as fast as ship will fly.’

‘What do you think we should do?’

‘Obviously I cannot dictate to a Commodore; but as far as the single aim of defeating this intervention by Bonapartist mercenaries, this potentially “extremely dangerous intervention” as the Secretary of State put it, I think we should run down the coast, looking attentively into the yards that contain vessels in any state of forwardness - and then as soon as we have examined Durazzo, straight away for Algiers, keeping the sharpest possible watch for a houario between Pantellaria and Kelibia. Then, it being assumed that we do not catch the vessel, I should go on in Ringle to dissuade the Dey from carrying the promised treasure across, while you remain, a very present threat on the horizon, a powerful, famous frigate, seen by all shipping that comes and goes.’

‘No Pomone?’

‘Her eighteen-pounders are very well, but this is no longer a matter of direct physical strength. We have already dealt with the two dangerous heavy frigates and I have - at enormous expense, I may say - set in train a series of measures that will rid us of several smaller but still dangerous vessels repairing or nearing completion - brigs-of-war, corvettes, three gunboats. Letting Pomone return to Malta with her companion seems to me a master-stroke.’

Jack considered. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We shall do as you say. As soon as you have finished your account I will send it across to Pomone, who will carry it to Valetta.’

A violent ten-minute downpour had cleared the sky without much deadening the prosperous topgallant breeze: day was breaking fair and clear in the east and looking southward at his companions he saw that Cerbère had hoisted the French royal ensign. ‘Mr Rodger,’ he said to the signal midshipman, ‘to Ringle: Send a boat aboard pennant, if you please.’

The young man had seen much great-gun exercise, but he had never been in anything so very like action as this and he was still at least three parts deaf, as well as stupid from lack of sleep. Jack repeated the words somewhat louder, but the grizzled yeoman had heard the first time and he had the hoist not exactly ready, but clearly evident.

‘Stephen,’ said Jack, ‘I do not mean to hurry you in the least, but as soon as you have finished, a boat will carry it to Pomone. Shall I send word too, stating our aims?’

‘It might be as well: just “it has been agreed that...’

Yours will be a separate cover.’ He drew the candle towards himself, melted wax, and sealed his brief account: as a matter of course he wrapped it in oiled silk, thrust the whole into a sailcloth pocket, sealed that too, and passed it over.

‘I wonder that so fumble-fisted a companion can be as neat as a seamstress when it comes to parcels: or opening your belly, for that matter,’ reflected Jack, watching him.

‘Use makes master,’ observed Stephen.

‘I never said a word,’ cried Jack. ‘I was as mute as a swan.’ Ringle’s boat came alongside. The young officer received the parcel reverentially, and Jack put his ship about, heading back to the coast with the wind two points free, followed by the Ringle. As they passed those bound for Malta they exchanged greetings, some formal, others, from the open gunports, facetious and even bawdy. The Commodore had it in mind to observe an already ancient naval tradition and throw out a signal consisting of book, chapter and verse: ‘Oh that my words were now written, oh, that they were printed in a book’ was the quotation that had been addressed to him in the Baltic by Admiral Gambier when he was very slow with a return of stores; but before he could think of the references, a truly heavenly smell of coffee and kippered herrings wafted along the quarterdeck.

‘Mr Rodger,’ he said to the signal midshipman, ‘should you care to breakfast in the cabin?’

‘Oh yes, sir, if you please.’

‘My compliments to Mr Harding, and should be happy if he were to join us.’

It was a cheerful breakfast, and copious, as Jack Aubrey’s breakfasts always were whenever he was anywhere near a civilized shore; and his present cook Franklin was an old Mediterranean hand, with a genius at shopping in lingua franca, gestures, and cheerful repetition growing louder and louder until the poor foreigner (Dalmatian in this case) understood. The kippers had of course been brought from home, but the perfectly fresh eggs, butter, cream and veal cutlets were from the island of Brazza itself and the new sack of true Mocha from a friendly Turkish ship encountered off the Bocche di Cattaro.