Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

Chapter Ten

At seven bells in the forenoon watch the Surprise, under topsails alone, heaved to: the officers began to assemble on the quarterdeck, the midshipmen on the gangway, all carrying their quadrants or sextants, for the sun was approaching the meridian, and they were to take his altitude at the moment he crossed it, thereby finding just how far south of the equator they were at noon. To the landsman, to the mere superficial observer, this might have seemed a work of supererogation, since clear on her larboard bow rose the headland of Punta Angeles, the western extremity of Valparaiso bay, whose position had been laid down with the utmost accuracy time out of mind, while in the brilliantly clear air miles of the great Cordillera could be seen, the peak of Aconcagua a perfect compass-bearing to the north-east; but as far as Jack Aubrey was concerned this was neither here nor there. He liked to run a man-of-war as men-of-war had always been run, with the ship's day beginning at noon; and this was a particularly important day, the last of the month and the first on which he could hope to find Stephen Maturin in Valparaiso. He therefore wished nothing to be done that might break the established pattern or bring ill-luck. It was true that a few years ago some wild enthusiast, a Whiggish civilian no doubt, had decreed that day should start at midnight; but Jack, though a scientific, forward-looking officer, agreed with many of his fellow-captains in giving this foolish innovation no countenance whatsoever: besides, it had taken him years to persuade Stephen that nautical days really did start at noon, and he did not want his imperfect conviction to be shaken in any way at all. Then again, once this last day of the month had in fact begun, he meant to carry out some physical measurements for his friend the polymath Alexander Humboldt, in whose penguin-filled cold northern current the ship was now swimming.

Silence fore and aft: anxious peering through many an eyepiece. Jack brought his own sun down three times to the fine firm horizon, and on the third it was a trifle below the second, which had been the true altitude. He noted the angle, and turning he found Tom Pullings, who in this anomalous ship played many parts as well as that of first lieutenant, standing there bare-headed beside him. 'Noon and thirty-three degrees south, sir, if you please,' said Tom.

'Very good, Captain Pullings,' replied Jack. 'Make it twelve.'

Pullings turned to Norton, the mate of the watch, and said, 'Make it twelve,' in a strong, hieratic voice. Norton, with equal gravity, hailed the quartermaster, not three feet away, 'Strike eight bells and turn the glass.' The four double strokes rang out, and with the last still in the air, Pullings, directing his words to the bosun, roared, 'Pipe to dinner.'

The lions at the Tower of London made a prodigious and indeed a shocking din on being fed, but theirs was a kittenish mewling compared with that of the Surprise; besides, the lions were rarely provided with mess-kids upon which the seamen beat with such zeal, this being Thursday, a salt-pork day, and one upon which an extraordinary plum-duff was to be served out in honour of the birthday of Lord Melville, the brother of Captain Aubrey's particular friend Heneage Dundas and First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of Jack's reinstatement.

The roaring was so usual that Jack barely noticed it, but the ensuing quietness did strike his mind. The Surprise was not one of those discontented spit-and-polish ships in which men were not allowed to speak on duty, for not only would this have been abhorrent to Jack Aubrey's feelings and dead contrary to his idea of command ('a happy ship is your only right hard-fighting ship') but with such a ship's company it would not have answered for a moment, and except at times of strong activity there was always a steady low hum of talk on deck. At present the temporary silence made the almost deserted deck seem still more empty; and Jack, addressing Adams, his clerk and factotum in the intellectual line, lowered his voice. 'Mr Adams,' he said, 'when we have taken the temperatures and the salinity, we might try a sounding. With the two headlands we have a capital triangle, and I should like to know what the bottom is like at this point, if our line can reach it. Once that is done we will take the ship a little farther in and you can carry on in the cutter, just as though you were calling for mail or the like. I will give you the addresses where the Doctor may be found, and if he is at either you will bring him off directly. But with the utmost discretion, Mr Adams. The utmost discretion, too, in asking the way. The utmost discretion is called for in this case: that is why I do not take her in and lie in the road or the port itself. Things may come to that or to some system of signalling; but how charming it would be if we could pluck him off the shore right away.' - lowering his voice still farther - 'You will not repeat it, but there appears to be some question of a high-placed very furious husband - legal proceedings - every kind of unpleasantness, you understand me."

The quietness lasted throughout the scientific observations and during the time the hands ate their dinner and drank their grog, a time during which Reade laid out the coils of deep-sea line at given intervals from the forecastle to the mizen chains so that the men could let them go in succession. He had not retired to the midshipmen's berth, because he had been invited to dine in the cabin - invited to eat a much better dinner than he could hope to find in the berth, but to eat it more than two hours later than his usual time; and now, by way of distracting his ravenous, ever-increasing hunger, he indulged in capers unworthy of his rank or age, such as thumping the deep-sea lead against the frigate's side. The rhythmic noise broke in on Jack's calculations and he called out, 'Mr Reade. Mr Reade, there. Pray attend to your duty.'

His duty materialized in the next two minutes, when the afternoon watch came on deck and those hands who had been told off for the sounding took up their stations, each with a coil of the stout waterlaid line in his hand. Reade walked out on the larboard cat-head swinging the twenty-eight pound lead in his one hand, watched with infinite anxiety by the seamen lining the side, dropped it into the water, calling, 'Lead's away,' and walked back without a stumble. From forward aft each man holding twenty fathoms in his hand, sang out, 'Watch, there, watch,' as he let the last coils go. Each of the ten repeated the call, except for the last, in the mizen chains, who held the fag-end tight - no coils left at all - looked up at Reade, smiled and shook his head: 'No bottom with this line, sir.'

Reade crossed the quarterdeck, took off his hat, reported to Captain Aubrey, 'No bottom with this line, sir'; and seeing that Jack was no longer vexed with him he went on, 'Oh sir, I do wish you would look out over the larboard beam. There is as odd a craft as you can possibly imagine, a balsa, I think, sailing in the strangest way. It has been brought by the lee three times in the last five minutes, and the poor soul seems to be entangled in his sheet. He is a brave fellow to come on, but he has no more notion of handling a boat than the Doctor."

Jack glanced at the boat. He covered his poor eye and stared fixedly with the other before crying, 'Mr Norton, jump into the top with this glass. Look at that balsa with the purple sail and tell me what you see. Mr Wilkins, let the red cutter be lowered down at once.'

'On deck, there,' hailed Norton, his voice squeaking with emotion. 'On deck, sir. It is the Doctor - he is overboard - no, he is back again - I believe his tiller has come unshipped.'

The balsa, though wildly overloaded, was by definition unsinkable, and they brought him aboard to the heartiest cheers, helped him up the side with so zealous a welcome that he would have been pitched into the waist if Jack had not clasped him with both hands. 'Welcome aboard, Doctor,' he cried, and the ship's company called out, 'Welcome aboard - aye, aye - hear him - welcome aboard - huzzay, huzzay!' in defiance of all good order and discipline.