Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

'I do too.'

'Then why not go in the Ringle? Even if the wind don't back another point she will sail straight to Pompey as it lays, without going about, and get there at least twice as fast as that poor old knacker's yard of a Berenice.' Then seeing Stephen's look of surprise he poured him another cup and went on 'I never told you - there was no time last night or this morning, with that ass, that thundering great ass, playing off his humours - but I won her from Heneage after supper: a throw of sixes when I was on the very point of being gammoned. He had already borne six men, but he could not re-enter for a great while; and so I won. Tom and Reade and Bonden will run you up-Channel - they handle her beautifully - and I will add a few hands that don't belong to Shelmerston.'

Stephen made a few customary protests, but very few, since he was thoroughly used to both the Navy's generosity and rapid decision. Jack swallowed another cup and hurried off, bawling for his gig.

Alone in the great cabin Stephen reflected upon Sir Joseph's message. It required him to proceed to London without the loss of a minute, and it did so even more briefly than was usual. Joseph Blaine hated prolixity almost as much as he hated Napoleon Buonaparte, yet this extreme curtness perplexed Stephen until, recalling times past, he turned the halfsheet over and there on the lower left-hand corner found the faintly-pencilled letter pi, signifying many. In this case it meant the Committee, a body made up of the leading men in the intelligence service and the Foreign Office that had sent him to Peru to forestall or rather to outstrip the French in their attempt at winning over the chiefs of the movement for independence from Spain. Clearly they wanted to know what he had accomplished, and in all probability this extreme haste meant that they were having some difficulty in representing the matter in a favourable or even a tolerable light to their Spanish allies. He ran through the long series of complicated events that would make up his account, and as he did so he gazed at the frigate's wake, a wake, all things considered, that had now attained a perfectly enormous length.

He was still reflecting when Tom Pullings, the ship's nominal captain - nominal, because of an inept scheme for disguising the Surprise as a privateer under the command of an unemployed half-pay officer in order to deceive the Spaniards - came in and cried 'There you are, Doctor. Such news! Berenice hove to and struck soundings clear not half a glass ago, and the Ringle will be alongside directly. Killick, Killick, there. The Doctor's sea-chest as quick as you like.'

He had scarcely left to see to his own before Jack came swarming aboard again by the stern ladder. 'There you are, Stephen,' he cried. 'Heneage hove his ship to and struck soundings clear - white sand and small shells - and all is laid along aboard the schooner. Killick, ho. Killick, there. The Doctor's sea-chest...'

'Which I done it, ain't I?' Killick's voice quivered with indignation. 'All corded up: nightshirt on top; slippers; common check shirt and trousers for the run up to the South Foreland; white shirt and neckcloth for London and decent black breeches; best wig tucked down in the right-hand forward corner.' He stumped off, and could be heard shoving the chest about, telling his mate 'to look alive, there, Bill.'

'As for my collections,' said Stephen, referring to the many barrels and crates in the hold, containing the specimens of an ardent natural philosopher whose interests ranged from cryptograms to the larger mammals, by way of insects, reptiles and birds, above all birds, and who had travelled thousands upon thousands of miles, 'I confide them entirely to you. And there are the little girls. Jemmy Ducks has a wife in the village, I believe?'

'He had the equivalent, or at least he had when we sailed; and I do not suppose Sarah and Emily would know the odds. Anyhow, I shall see them stowed until you come back. You will be coming back, I collect?'

'Certainly: I shall post down as soon as ever I can. I should be very sorry to see my Titicaca grebe decay.'

'Schooner alongside, if you please, sir,' said Bonden, Jack's coxswain and a very old friend: Stephen had taught him to read.

'And Jack, you will salute Diana most affectionately for me, I beg; and assure her that if I had my will...'

'Come, sir, if you please,' said Tom Pullings. 'Schooner's alongside and we are fending off something cruel, in this ugly cross-sea.'

They got him over safely, dry and uncrushed, though somewhat winded from having leapt, against all advice, as the schooner was on her lively rise. He had not been aboard her when she was the Berenice's tender, for although he did contemplate her from time to time with a certain mitigated interest, his own little green-painted skiff was infinitely more suitable for moving about, exploring the immediate surface of the ocean and the modest depths within reach of his net on 'those occasions when the ships were becalmed. Now he found her motion much brisker than that of the Surprise, six or seven times heavier, and he walked carefully aft to the larboard main shrouds, where he seemed to be in no man's way and where he was firmly supported by the aftermost pair. In the mean time the hands forward had flattened in the jib so that the Ringle's head paid off: a moment later the foresail and then the mainsail rose; the sheet came right aft and she leant over to leeward, moving faster and faster. Stephen clung on, strangely exhilarated; he meant to pluck out his handkerchief and wave to his friends, but before he could get at it with any safety they were racing past the Berenice, which really seemed to be standing still, though she had a respectable bow-wave and a fine spread of canvas.

Heneage Dundas took off his hat and called out something, kind and cheerful no doubt but the wind bore it away: Stephen raised a hand in salute - a rash move, for the next moment he was dashed from his hold, coming up against the powerful Barret Bonden, who was at the tiller - the schooner had no wheel. Without allowing the Ringle to deviate from her course for an instant Bonden seized the Doctor with his left hand and passed him to Joe Plaice, who made him fast, though with a reasonable latitude of movement, to an eye-bolt on the transom.

Here he collected himself and settled in moderate comfort quite soon, looking directly aft; and to his astonishment he saw that the Berenice and Surprise were already a great way off. The people on their forecastles were small, diminishing as he watched, individually unrecognizable apart from Awkward Davies with his red waistcoat. By now the Ringle had set her foretopsail (she was after all a topsail schooner) and with the breeze more than two points free - two points for her, since she could lie closer than five from the wind, whereas even that weatherly ship the Surprise, being square-rigged, could not do better than six, while the poor fat Berenice could barely manage seven, and that at the cost of immense leeway - she fairly tore along, a delight to all hands aboard.

Presently the two ships were hull-down except on the top of the rise, white against the dark grey of the clouds. Stephen saw them go about, standing towards Ushant and growing smaller still, for unless the wind backed farther still, they,unlike the Ringle, were condemned to beat up, tack upon tack. He watched them with a strange medley of feelings: the Berenice as a kindly ship and one in which he had spent many a pleasant evening with Jack, Dundas and Kearney, the first lieutenant, playing keen but perfectly civil whist, or merely in discursive uncontentious rambling talk about ports, local manners, and naval supplies, from China to Peru, all from personal experience; but the Surpnse had been his home for longer than he could easily recall. There had been intervals ashore and intervals in other ships; but he had probably lived in her longer than in any other dwelling he had known, his having been a wandering, unfixed life.