Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

During this time, if a space filled with such anxiety could be called a time, the Bellona and her fellows had been edging steadily westwards so as to fetch the Frenchman's wake as he proceeded north-north-east for Ireland in three or four days, and they filled the interval with the innumerable tasks always waiting to be done in a ship at sea, and fishing over the side, with moderate success.

The position at which the squadron would lie to, somewhat to the south and east of the point the French were expected to reach in three days at the most, had been given to the Laurel and the Ringle; but in almost twice that space of time, ocean drift, dirty weather and human fallibility deprived the figure of much of its meaning, and it was only when Maistral had been at sea since the fourteenth, that the Ringle came tearing close-hauled through a very heavy sea and a black squall at seven bells in the morning watch to bellow and roar that the French had been seen hull-down in the north-east steering north-east, half an hour after sunset yesterday.

For the last day and a half Jack Aubrey had spent almost all the time on deck or at the masthead, saying very little, eating less, pale, withdrawn. Now he breathed again; and now the steady process of cracking on began - preventer backstays, braces, shrouds and stays to enable the ship to bear the press of foul-weather canvas that the people were spreading with such goodwill.

But it required all this burst of furious seamanlike energy, all this urgent driving of the ship and encouragement of the squadron to prevent him slipping back into bitter self-reproach for having come so near to failure through over-confidence in his own judgment. Much of this activity, once the Bellona was in racing trim, was devoted to the Thames. He spent a whole day aboard her, showing them quite kindly how to wring an extra knot or even an extra two or three fathoms out of her; but although there was some improvement he had to admit that even when he had done his best she was still slow for a frigate: nothing would cure her but radical measures. It did not appear to him that her hull was particularly ill-formed, but it was quite certain that she could sail no better with her present trim. To take advantage of her lines, she had to be at least a foot and a half by the stern; yet solely to improve her looks, her hold, her ballast, water, stores, everything, had been stowed so that her masts were bolt upright, perpendicular for pretty. The smartest ship on the station, with her yards squared by the lifts and braces and her masts at right angles with the sea, said Thomas: Prince William had often commended her appearance. Jack concealed his opinion of Prince William's judgment of a man-of-war, but said that when they were in the Cove of Cork they would try to bring her by the stern a trifle and make comparative trials; he then said good day, leaving the frigate in a better mood. He had scarcely returned to the Bellona before the Thames, in her zeal, carried away her foretopgallant mast.

Nevertheless, on the second morning, towards the end of the forenoon watch, the low sky cleared a little and the French sails showed, faint white glimmers on the north-east horizon. Jack contemplated them from the masthead for some considerable time, gathering a general sense of their sailing qualities; and coming down at last he met with Killick's disagreeable, disapproving face. 'Now, sir,' he said, in that familiar whine,

'your good shirt and admiral's uniform has been spread out this last half glass. Which you ain't forgot you are dining with the wardroom today? Even the Doctor remembered it, and changed voluntary.'

The excitement of the chase had done wonders for the wardroom cook: he had lashed in most of his rarest and most costly ingredients - sherry in the turtle soup, port in the suckingpig's gravy, brandy in one of the Commodore's favourite forecastle dishes, fu-fu, ordinarily made of barley and treacle, but now with honey and cognac.

Jack made an excellent dinner, the first for a great while; the chase, the audible speed of the ship, with water singing loud along her side, the sense of eagerly straining wood, removed much of the restraint imposed by an admiral's uniform in the place of honour, and there was a general sound of cheerful and spontaneous conversation. Several of the officers had seen or more often heard something of Hoche's disastrous attempt on Bantry Bay with an enormous, unmanageable fleet in '96, and while for the most part they avoided shop, they had interesting things to say about that iron-bound coast, with its frightful seas in a full south-west gale - the Fastnet rock - the tide-race off the Skelligs - remarks however that might have been better timed if just such a wind were not already blowing, and if a dropping glass did not suggest that it would soon blow harder still.

After coffee Jack suggested that Stephen should put on a tarpaulin jacket and sou'wester - how perfectly named - and come with him to view their quarry from the forecastle, taking his come-up glass with them. It was a wet forecastle, with the spray and even green water of the following seas sweeping right forward to mingle with that flung up by the Bellona's bows as she pitched hawse-deep; but their view was so imperfect that Jack proposed the foretop and called for Bonden.

Stephen protested that he was perfectly recovered, perfectly strong enough for this simple, familiar ascent. Jack hailed somewhat louder, Bonden came at the double, and Stephen submitted, observing privately, 'I thus have the comfort of being raised safely, easily, to this eminence, and at the same time that of retaining my self-respect.'

The eminence of some eighty feet did indeed give them a fine uninterrupted expanse of grey, white-dashed, wind whipped ocean; and there in the north-east were the long looked-for sails. Not topsails alone, but sometimes courses too, and on occasion a hull rose clear. The Bellona had not quite fetched their wake, since the quickest way to do so was to converge upon it in as straight a line as possible rather than make a dog-leg: this meant that from the foretop they still had a slight sideways, glancing view of the French line. Jack passed the telescope. 'Two two-deckers, and a little small thing far ahead,' said Stephen. 'Then four that I take to be troop ships. And two frigates.'

'Yes,' said Jack. 'How well he handles those troop-ships: all neatly in their station. Their Commodore must be a man of parts. They are fast, even very fast for troop-ships, but I have little doubt we are overhauling them.' He turned a screw on the telescope that separated the two halves of a divided lens and said 'Now you see two images of the leading two-decket just touching: if they stay like that, we are going at the same speed: if they separate, the chase is going faster: if they over lap, we are gaining. One has to wait quite a while for the effeci to be visible.'

Stephen gazed and gazed: after a long pause in which he pointed out a stormy petrel pittering up the side of a foaming roller he looked again and cried 'They have joined. They overlap!'

'We are certainly gaining quite fast, and I think that if we were to leave the Thames to make the best of her way we might be up with them by mid-morning, within sight of land. I think their Commodore will almost certainly heave to and fight there, rather than close among those wicked rocks and on an unknown coast: besides, it might allow him to put his troops ashore under one or both of his frigates.'

'Would our frigates not destroy them?'

'Perhaps. But they might be badly outgunned in weight of metal. One Frenchman is I think a thirty-six-gun ship, almost certainly carrying eighteen-pounders, and the other a thirtytwo, with the same. Poor old Thames only has twelves, and Aurora no more than nines...'

Stephen made some other observations, but clearly Jack, gazing at the enemy, was not attending.