Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

'Very good, Mr Vidal,' said Jack, breathing deep. He glanced at the sky, he glanced aft, where the Franklin lay on the frigate's quarter a cable's length away, throwing a fine bow-wave. 'Let us take in royals and topgallant studdingsails.'

Vidal had hardly relayed the order before the topmen were racing aloft: the royals and topgallant studdingsails vanished, the ship's way sensibly decreased, and Jack said, 'All hands aft, if you please.'

'Mr Bulkeley, pipe all hands aft,' said Vidal to the bosun, who replied, 'All hands aft it is, sir,' and instantly wound his call -sharp blasts followed by a long quavering shriek.

This was the first official information to reach the foremast hands, but if anyone aboard was so simple as to expect them to be surprised at the news he was wholly mistaken: they had all contrived to be clean, shaved, sober and properly dressed; they all had their hats; and now they all swarmed aft along the larboard gangway, overflowing on to the quarterdeck in the usual shapeless heap. There they stood grinning and sometimes nudging one another, and Jack called out, 'Now, shipmates, we are going to proceed to a provisional sharing-out. But this is all to be by silver, Spanish dollars or pieces of eight, shillings and bits, or by gold that everybody knows: guineas, louis d'or, ducats, joes and the like. The old-fashioned, outlandish pieces will be sold by weight and shared accordingly. Mr Wedell, hands out of beckets.' The unhappy boy blushed crimson, whipped his hands from his pockets and crept behind the taller Norton with what countenance he could summon. 'Paper notes and bills, and of course hull, fittings, goods and head-money, come in the final reckoning.'

'If spared,' murmured Mr Vidal.

'Just so,' said Jack. 'If spared. Mr Adams, carry on.'

'Ezekiel Ayrton,' cried Mr Adams, his finger on the open muster-book, and Ayrton, foretopman, starboard watch, came aft, happy though somewhat conscious of being alone and in the public gaze. He walked across the quarterdeck, taking off his hat as he came, but instead of passing straight on beyond the Captain to the windward gangway and so forward as he would have done at an ordinary muster, he advanced to the capstan. There, upon the capstan-head, Adams paid down two guineas, one louis d'or, two ducats (one Venetian, the other Dutch) and enough pieces of eight and Jamaica bits to bring the sum to twenty-seven pounds six shillings and fourpence. Ayrton swept them into his hat with a chuckle, moved on two paces and touched his forehead to the Captain. 'Give you joy of them Ayrton,' said Jack, smiling at him. So it went throughout the alphabet, with more laughter and outbursts of wit than would have been countenanced in a more regular man-of-war, until a minute after John Yardley, yeoman of the sheets, had joined his jocose, wealthy companions on the forecastle, when all merriment was cut to instant silence by the hail from the masthead: 'On deck there: object fine on the starboard bow. Which I believe it is a barrel.'

Chapter Five

The barrel, the first inanimate object they had seen outside their own wooden world for what already seemed an age, was watched intently by all hands as it bobbed closer; and when at last it came aboard, seized with some difficulty by Bonden and Yardley, tossing on the choppy sea in the Doctor's skiff, most of the Surprise's former whalers came as far aft alongside the gangway as was decent, for the cask was seen to be bound with withies, not with iron hoops, not man-of-war fashion nor even that of a China-going ship.

'Mr Vidal,' said Jack, 'you have been in the South Sea fishery: what do you make of it?'

'Why, sir,' said Vidal, 'I should say it is a Yankee barrel; but I sailed out of London River, and never was in those ports. Simon and Trotter would know more.'

'Pass the word for Simon and Trotter,' said Jack, and they instantly stepped on to the quarterdeck.'

'Martha's Vineyard,' said Trotter, turning the barrel in his hands.

'Nantucket,' said Simon. 'I was married there, once.'

'Then how come it has Isaac Taylor's mark?' asked Trotter.

'Well, any road,' said Simon, looking fixedly at Jack, 'this here is a Yankee barrel, sir, what they call a Bedford hog in New England; and it has not been in the water a couple of days. There is no sea-clummer on it. And the dowels is sound. They would never have heaved it over the side without they had a full hold. A full hold and homeward bound.'

All within earshot nudged one another, grinning: their prize-money clanked in their loaded hats; they were delighted at the idea of even more.

Jack considered the sky, the set of the sea, the breeze and the current. The whole ship's company, eminently professional, did the same. The only exception was Dr Maturin, who considered a thin line of birds, high and remote: when he had fixed them in his pocket-glass (no simple feat with the increasing swell) he put them down as southern cousins to the kittiwake: they were gliding steadily east-south-east. For a moment he thought of offering Martin the little telescope; but he decided against it. For their part Martin and Dutourd were contemplating the seamen, their profoundly serious, concentrated weighing of the sea, the weather, the possibilities of a capture, and Stephen heard Martin say, 'Homo hominis lupus.'

Jack called the Franklin up by signal and when she was within half a cable's length he stepped right aft and called out, 'Tom, we have picked up a barrel, seemingly fresh, perhaps from a Yankee whaler. Bear away to leeward and let us sweep on our former course.'

Not a great deal was left of the tropical day, but until the very dipping of the sun every masthead was manned and relieved each bell; and some lingered on throughout the brief twilight. Even the most sanguine had known that the chance of finding a ship in this immensity of ocean with no more than a barrel and the known habits of South Sea whalers for guidance was very remote, although hope was sustained by the presence of sea-birds (rather uncommon in these blue waters) travelling in the same direction. The chief basis of this hope was a fervent desire that it should be fulfilled, and it sank steadily with the coming of the night, sweeping up deep purple from the east, already flecked with stars. Now, in the last dog-watch, as the last men came slowly down, dispirited, it revived, rising high above its former merely speculative pitch, for the Franklin, far over to leeward, sent up a blue flare, followed shortly after by a night-signal, a hoist of lanterns.

Reade was signal-midshipman, and with his telescope poised on Wedell's shoulder he read off the hoist to his Captain in a firm, official voice. 'Telegraphic, sir: alphabetic. K. R. E. N. G. Kreng, sir: I hope I have got it right,' he added in a more human tone.

'Kreng, ha, ha ha!' cried a dozen voices on the gangway; and the helmsman, in a low, kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all stripped off.'

Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr Reade, acknowledge and make the signal Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails .'

This same course took the Surprise past the dead whale soon after the moon had risen: white birds whirled and flashed through the beams of the stern lantern. They could scarcely be identified - some pied petrels and possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart from gulls - but on the other hand the huge carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea, was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's side. 'They are not as troublesome as the young ones, not being so nimble, but they sound mighty deep - I have known one take out the line of four boats an-end, eight hundred fathom, can you imagine it? - and when they come up they are apt to turn awkward and snap your boat in two. But may I say, Doctor,' he added in a hesitant murmur, 'I saw your mate catting over the side - to windward, poor soul - and then he went below, looking right sickly. Could he have eaten something, do you suppose?'