Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

'There was a good two foot to spare, so there was,' said Stephen, relaxing.

'It is very well,' said Jack. 'Very well. But I dread the Oscott bridge. Does Diana know it, Stephen?'

'Sure, she has been driving about the countryside day and night: it is her liveliest joy. But tell me, where is young Philip?'

'Oh, he stayed at home to worship Mrs Oakes. Did you not remark his moon-struck gaze? No, of course you were sitting next to him. Still, you might have seen him pick up her napkin and press it to his lips. But this bridge is a most damnably awkward one. You come down a wicked steep hill in the middle of the village, and there right in front of you there is the bridge, hard on your left, a blind corner at an angle of ninety or even a hundred degrees, before you are aware of it. You have to turn terribly sharp - a damned narrow bridge with a low stone wall on either side and unless you judge it just so you hit the corner and you are in the river twenty feet below - deep water - with the coach on top. Don't you think you might mention it to her?'

'I do not. She is a very fine whip, you know.'

'Then perhaps I should,' said Jack.

Stephen bowed, and after a moment Jack lowered the glass again, leant out, and in a conciliating tone he called, 'Coz, oh coz.'

The coach slowed perceptibly. 'What now?' replied Diana. 'It is only that I thought, being a native as it were, that I thought perhaps I should tell you about the very dangerous bridge at Maiden Oscott. But perhaps you know it?'

'Jack Aubrey,' she said, 'if you do not like the way I drive this coach, take the bloody reins yourself, and be damned to you.'

'Not at all, not at all,' cried Jack. 'It was only that I thought...'

The horses resumed their fine round pace: Jack sank back. 'Perhaps I have vexed her,' he said, 'though I spoke both meek and civil.'

'Perhaps you have,' said Stephen.

The downward slope grew steeper, and even steeper. The first houses appeared and very soon they were in the street itself, Dundas hallooing to clear dogs, cats, asses and children out of the way and the horses going rather faster than Diana would have allowed at another time. She had the tension of the reins just so: her hands were in close touch with the horses' mouths and her keen gaze was fixed on the left-hand leading corner of the wall that crossed the bridge, a wall scarred by innumerable vehicles in the last four hundred years. With a last glance down at the hub of her near forewheel, she changed the pressure on the reins, clucked to the leaders and swung the coach square on to the narrow bridge, avoiding the stone by half an inch and trotting superbly across to the other side.

Where the Maiden Oscott road, having risen again and fallen again, joined the Exeter turnpike she pulled up at a famous coaching-inn by a delightful stream, and while the others held the horses' heads she climbed nimbly down. Jack gave her a hand from the lower step and said, 'I do ask your pardon, Diana.'

'Never mind it, Jack,' she said with a brilliant smile - she was in excellent looks, with the fine fresh air arid the excitement - 'I have been frightened too, aboard your ships. Now be a good fellow and call for a room, coffee, toast, and perhaps bacon and eggs, if they have nothing better - Lord, I could do with a decent second breakfast. But for the moment I must retire.'

Jack had given orders for the horses to be watered and walked up and down before their moderate bite, and he was rejoining his friends in front of the inn when he heard his name called. It was William Dolby, followed by Harry Lovage, both old friends (Lovage was called Old Lechery), crossing the road from the stream, both carrying fishingrods, and both looking thoroughly happy - indeed it was a delightful morning, a delightful scene - the water flowing in its smooth green banks, the scent of a late aftermath drifting across, and the air full of swallows.

'Look what we have caught,' cried Dolby, opening his bag. 'Such trouts you might dream of, the glorious day!'

'My best was still larger,' said Lovage. 'You must breakfast with us. The two fishes ain't in it, nor the five loaves. Dick' - this to a waiter - 'lay for us all in the Dolphin parlour, will you?'

They moved slowly across the forecourt, admiring the fish, talking of claret and mallard and the mayfly hatch, and Lovage said, 'There will be plenty for supper; and if there ain't we shall make up on the evening rise. Fish suppers make a man skip like a flea, ha, ha, ha. We have Nelly Clapham with us, and her young sister Sue, such a cheerful, jolly...' He stopped abruptly, looking appalled, for there in the porch, pausing to join them, was Diana: very clearly not a lady of pleasure.

They broke off to receive her - introductions - and Stephen said, 'My dear, these gentlemen have invited us to breakfast with them on some of the noblest trouts that ever yet were seen. But it may well be that you are tired after your drive, and would as soon sit quietly with a little thin gruel and perhaps a very small cup of chocolate. I cannot recommend cream or sugar.'

'Never in life. I should be very happy to breakfast on these gentlemen's catch, in the company of their friends, whom I met on the stairs. They seemed good-natured young ladies - and they were singing, oh so sweetly.'

It was a successful breakfast. The young ladies, finding that Diana gave herself neither airs nor graces, soon got over their shyness; the trout were excellent; the conversation free and cheerful; and at the end Nelly, having run upstairs for a small guitar, gave them a song, cheered to the echo by many people in other parts of the inn, and by a beaming, barely recognizable Killick at the window, while Dolby begged Diana and her party to stay to dinner - there would be a famous hare soup, and blackcock from Somerset.

'Thank you, sir,' she replied. 'I would with all my heart, but I have promised to deliver these gentlemen to Torbay, and deliver them I shall, in spite of a certain timidity on the part of some of the crew.'

Chapter Four

This she did quite early the next morning, they having spent the night at a coaching-inn some way inland, for the fishingvillages on the coast itself were somewhat barbarous, and she brought them over the northern hills at the turn of the forenoon tide.The present blockade of Brest was being carried out by a much smaller squadron than that commanded by Cornwallis in the heroic days of 1803, yet even so Torbay was filled with shipping - sloops, cutters, liberty-boats and victuallers inshore and several larger men-of-war, ships of the line and frigates in the offing, the whole diversified by ships on passage and the scores of red-sailed Brixham trawlers coming round Berry Head, close-hauled on the freshening northeast breeze, for the south-wester had died in the course of the night.Diana reined in on the brow of the hill, and as they sat there, gazing down through the cool clear air, smiling as they did so, an elderly two-decker lying beyond the Thatcher rock hoisted the Blue Peter and fired a gun, galvanizing the three of her boats that were ashore.'That must be the old Mars,' said Dundas. 'Woolton has her now."What a glorious moment to get under way: breeze and tide just as they might have been prayed for,' said Jack. 'Harry Woolton is a fine brisk fellow, and if he can pick his boats off the Berry he will be in with Ushant by breakfast tomorrow. Oh Lord, how I hope I may catch one of her people. Dear Diana, Cousin Diana, pray be a good creature for once and run us down into the village - don't spare the horses and never mind our necks, so I get alongside that yawl before they shove off.'

'Do, my dear, if you please,' said Stephen. 'It is our certain duty to be aboard without the loss of a minute.'

But the road down wound intolerably, and even the most skilful, most intrepid whip could not clear a passage through the dense, sullen regiment of dull-red bullocks that flowed slowly but steadily from a small side-lane, stopping and staring, deaf to cries, entreaties and threats. By the time the sweating, exasperated horses had brought the coach to the strand at last all Mars' boats were skimming over the main towards the headland, there to intercept their ship in her course; and no amount of hailing, however passionate, would bring them back. Nor was there any report of another ship going for Ushant before Thursday, if that.