Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

'Oh yes. With the steady westerlies and the west-wind drift this is the quickest way from New South Wales to the Cape. Oh dear me, yes. They began using it at the very beginning of the infernal colony, you remember, and the Navy still... I tell you what, Stephen: there is something very nasty blowing up in the south. The swell is already with us and I fear a deadly storm. Bonden. Bonden, there. Clap on to the line: I am sending the Doctor down. Bear a hand, bear a hand.'

It was a cruel hard blow, and the Surprise clawed off from Diego Ramirez and its long tail of rocks as far and fast as ever she could, sometimes making fair headway, sometimes lying-to under storm trysails when the prodigious southern swell compelled her to do so, but always keeping enough sea-room for the comfort of those aboard, every man-jack of whom dreaded a lee-shore more than anything in this world and perhaps the next. That however was the only kind of comfort they knew until at last the storm blew itself out. For the rest of the time the ship was in very violent motion, with green seas sweeping her deck fore and aft, nobody turning in dry, nobody lying warm, nobody having a hot meal and rarely a hot drink, all hands called night after night.

Yet the storm did blow itself out; the strong westerlies returned, and the frigate made her uneven way back across the southern swell cut into frightful seas by a strong sideways blast. Most very strong irregular winds have freakish effects and this was no exception: no men were lost or seriously injured, but on the other hand the well-lashed and double griped spare top and topgallant masts on the leeward side of the booms flew overboard, together with other valuable spars, like a bundle of twigs, while the Doctor's skiff, stowed inside the untouched launch, was utterly destroyed; and while the Doctor himself, contemplating the apocalyptic scene from a scuttle in the cabin (he was not allowed on deck) saw a sight unique in his experience : an albatross, navigating the great crests and troughs with all its natural skill, was surprised by a flying packet of water plucked from a cross-current and dashed into the sea. It arose from the boil with an enormous wing-stroke and fled across the face of the rising wave: no sound could of course be heard, but Stephen thought he detected a look of extreme indignation on its face.

They were back on their station, with the islands clear on the larboard beam except in thick weather. But they had brought the cold with them, the right antarctic cold of the high sixties and beyond; and although the midshipmen's berth took a perverse delight in fishing up pieces of drift-ice to freeze their already frigid grog, the older hands, particularly those who had sailed in South Sea whalers, looked upon it with sullen disapproval, as a mark of worse, far worse, to come.

This cold, and this for late summer unparallelled show of ice, meant that whenever the westerlies paused, which they sometimes did, without any rhyme or reason that could be made out, the air was filled with mist or even downright fog.

They paused indeed in the middle watch of the Friday after the ship's return, the day after the full moon, and presently they were succeeded by an air from the north; this strengthened with the rising of the sun and immediately after breakfast the man in the crow's nest hailed the deck in an enormous voice of passionate intensity: 'Sail ho! Two sail of ships on the larboard bow.'

The hail reached the cabin, where Jack was drinking coffee in a battered half-pint mug and eating eggs. He had already started up, thrusting both from him when Reade darted in, crying, 'Two sail of ships, sir, fine on the larboard bow.'

Jack ran aloft, straight up without a pause, the hoar-frost scattering from the ratlines under his feet. The lookout moved down on to the yard to leave him room, calling up, 'They have just cleared the middle island, sir. Topsails and courses. Which I saw them clear before the fog closed in.'

Time passed. The intently listening silence on deck was broken by two bells: no one heard the steady heave of the south-western swell at all. In these latitudes a sea-fog could resist almost any amount of wind, being bred from the surface itself; yet the wind could tear gaps in it, and the wind did so just as the cold was beginning to pinch Jack Aubrey's nose and ears. Three miles to the north-east he saw the two ships, their sails white against the black islands of Diego Ramirez: three to four hundred tons, bluff-bowed, broad in the beam. Stout merchantmen, no doubt, capable of cramming a great deal into their hold: but surely very, very slow.

With his glass to his good eye he studied the nearest: she seemed to be getting ready to change course, bringing the wind on to her quarter in order to sail westward round the southern shore of the last island in the group before hauling her wind and steering as near north into the Pacific as the breeze would allow. Both her watches were on deck, of course, a meagre crew: and with so few hands no brisk manoeuvre could be expected. Yet even so she seemed strangely hesitant about this sensible, straightforward operation; and all at once it occurred to Jack that she was the leader, the ship which had been there before, which pointed out the way, and that she was finding it very difficult to induce her second astern to take notice of her signals. Admittedly, the second astern was more often blurred by fog than not; and in this light flags were difficult to read. His theory was confirmed almost at once: the leading ship fired a gun, and all her people stared eagerly astern to see what effect it would have. She seemed to be keeping no look-out at all. In any case he was morally certain that she had not seen the Surprise: the frigate, lying with reefed courses against a blurred grey background, would have been very hard to see in any case, and to those who had no notion of any enemy within five thousand miles she was virtually invisible.

The China ships' intention was perfectly obvious. And if the Surprise ran a little way to the east and then steered north she would have the weather-gage, which would enable her to bring them to action when she pleased. Yet he would not hurry things: there was the possibility of the third ship. And as they had been as regular as the Bath to London stage-coach as far as time was concerned there seemed a strong likelihood that they would be equally exact in number; and it would be a sad shame not to bag the whole shooting-match. The third ship must be allowed to sail right through the tangled islands and join her companions, for once she was in the open sea there was no return with this breeze. Very soon the wind would back into the west, and with the Surprise's remarkable powers of sailing close-hauled the merchantmen could not hope to escape.

He leaned over the edge of the crow's nest and in a quiet voice he called, 'Captain Pullings.'

'Sir?'

'Pray let all hands go to quarters, but without any noise at all: no drum. And as soon as the fog closes in on us, make sail, all plain sail: course north-north-east. For the moment let Mr Norton go into the mizen-top with a glass and Bonden to the fore.'

The muffled sound of many feet below: guns run out with infinite precaution - no more than the faint squeak of a truck, the inevitable but stifled clash of round-shot. Then the fog closed in and without a single order the sails dropped from their yards or rose silently along their stays.

The frigate gathered way. Pullings could be heard saying, 'Thus, thus, very well thus,' to the helmsman as she settled on her course. Three bells. 'Dowse that God-damn bell,' said Jack, rather loud.

Fifteen minutes more, and as he had expected the breeze freshened, backing westward. He felt a sudden chill waft about him; and he was not alone, for the whalers looked at one another with a meaning nod.