Patrick O'Brian: The Wine-Dark Sea

He went the second day after the stroke. His shipmates attended with real concern - they had nothing against Isaac Rame himself, nothing whatsoever - but when the high south-western swell closed over him without a splash on Tuesday morning they went back to their work with a particular satisfaction, one that informed their entire attitude.

** *

This satisfaction continued throughout the week, or rather more. Stephen, who was often, almost invariably, in the way on deck when complex work was being carried out, wrote a commentary on it for Diana: Mariners: Consensus and Cohesion in certain States of Adversity, together with Some Remarks on Peruvian Cirripedes for the Royal Society.

For the most part the weather was kind, the wind, though often boisterous, steady in the west; and although they had frequent rain and two blinding snow-storms there was no ice about and the temperature was nearly always above freezing by day. They were still without a rudder, but until one could be fashioned and above all hung, they had a steering oar over the quarter that allowed a point or two of northerly deviation from their steady eastward course. By the end of this time three sad little poles rose from where the stately masts had been: the foremast, standing stark alone; its topmast and topgallant, both worked into the launch's mast, stood for the shattered main; and an even stranger assembly took the place of the mizen, spreading a pitiful fore-and-aft sail the size of the cabin tablecloth: yet it did give a certain balance. From the main and the fore yards hung broad but extraordinarily shallow square sails, so low that when Stephen was led on deck to see them he asked where they were intended to be hoisted. 'They are hoisted,' he was told, in a voice of strong displeasure. Forward still, and there was the unhurt bowsprit, carrying its spritsail and spritsail topsail; and, since the ship was very well found in bosun's and sailmaker's stores, she wore all the staysails that could possibly be managed. 'It is just like Bridie Colman's washing day, I do declare,' cried Stephen, in another unfortunate attempt to please. 'Everything is within an easy hand's reach, so it is.'

'This is an extraordinarily small piece of plum-duff,' he observed at dinner - Sunday dinner - in the cabin. 'I wish it may not be an ignoble stroke of revenge for my innocent words this morning about our harmless, meek, and bargelike appearance -innocent upon my word, and even, I thought, amusing - a mild pleasantry. But not at all: prim faces, wry looks, and now this meagre, despicable pudding. I had thought better of my shipmates.'

'You mistake, brother,' said Jack. 'Mr Adams and I, in our joint character as purser, cast our accounts yesterday, reckoning every last firkin of oatmeal, every bin and locker in the bread-room, and dividing the whole, private stores not excepted, by the number of mouths aboard. That piece of pudding is your full ration, my poor Stephen.'

'Oh, indeed,' said Stephen, looking rather blank.

'Yes. I have told the ship's company of this, and I have told them that unless or until we can fashion and ship a rudder..."

'If you spend another two minutes up to your neck in water at this temperature, striving to do so, I will not answer for your life,' said Stephen. 'Last time it was nip and tuck, with hot blanket, fomentations, and half a pint of my best brandy.'

'... unless we can ship a rudder that will enable us to haul up for St Helena, I intend to bear away for the Cape, edging north all the time with our steering oar, or perhaps some better gear. It is about three thousand five hundred miles, and although we have logged over a hundred for each of these last three days with this comic rig, as you so rightly call it, and with this steady wind and beautiful eastward current, I have only reckoned on fifty, no more: one seventieth part of the distance. Fifty multiplied by seventy is three thousand five hundred, Stephen. And that succulent, luxurious pudding now in front of you is the seventieth part of all the duff that you will eat before we raise the Table Mountain.'

'God love you, Jack, what things you tell me.'

'Never despond, dear Stephen: remember that Bligh sailed four thousand miles in an open boat, with not a thousandth part of our stores. You will never despond, Stephen,' said Jack with a very slight emphasis. 'And I am sure you will never find any of the seamen do so, either.'

'No,' said Stephen, stifling his recollections of the terrible following seas during the frequent storms in these latitudes, the perpetual danger of being pooped, of broaching-to, and of being lost with all hands in a turmoil of foam. 'No. I shall not despond.'

'And Stephen, may I beg you not to be facetious when speaking of the barky? The people are surprisingly susceptible, if you know what I mean, about her appearance. And if ever you intend to be complimentary, you might well be advised just to throw up your hands and cry "Oh", or "Superb", or "I have never seen anything better", without being particular.'

'The Doctor has been choked off for being a satyr,' said Killick to Grimble.

'What's a satyr?'

'What an ignorant cove you are to be sure, Art Grimble: just ignorant, is all. A satyr is a party that talks sarcastic. Choked off something cruel, he was; and his duff taken away and eaten before his eyes.'

Although the ship was wonderfully busy the news spread forward with its usual speed, and Stephen, making his way to the forecastle to watch albatrosses and the nondescript petrel that had been following the ship for some days, was greeted with particular kindness, brought a coil of soft manilla to sit upon, given a pair of belaying-pins to hold his telescope steady, and told about the birds that had been seen that day, including a numerous band of stinkpots flying south, an infallible sign of clear weather. This was all very much in line with what he had so often known at sea, and once more the evident good-will warmed his spirit.

He thought of it with pleasure as he went to sleep; and its absence the next day, together with a want of that cheerfulness so usual on deck, struck him with all the more force when he took the air in the forenoon after a trying, anxious time with the sick-berth, where neither burns nor foot were doing well, and with his collections, where a vile moth was breeding among the feathers and no pepper, no pepper left in the entire ship to discourage it. He arrived on deck not by climbing the companion-ladder to the quarterdeck in the usual way but by the fore-hatchway, having traversed the berth-deck to consider Dutourd's former cabin for the amputation in case his suspicion of an incipient pneumonia (that frequent sequel) should prove to be true. This brought him into the waist of the ship, filled with hands. They touched their hats and wished him good-day, but mechanically, with barely a smile, and returned to their low, anxious, intent conversations, frequently calling up in subdued voices to their companions thick along the starboard gangway.

He pushed through to the quarterdeck; and there were the same grave faces, grey with cold and discouragement, looking fixedly to windward, that is to say a little south of the ship's modest wake. 'What is afoot?' he murmured in Reade's ear.

'Stand over here, sir,' said Reade, guiding him to the rail, 'and look out to windward.'

A topsail schooner sailing large: and some miles beyond her a ship, also standing north-north-east with topgallants and studdingsails abroad, a glorious sight; but one that gave no pleasure.

'It is that brutal great American, come to snap us up,' said Reade.

'Shame on him, after such a handsome message,' murmured Wedel.

'Where is the Captain?'

'Aloft, sir; but,' Reade whispered, 'he don't see very well today. Both eyes water so in the cold.'

'It is cold, sure,' said Stephen. He focused his best newly-cleaned glass, a superlative piece made for him by Dolland with a somewhat greater magnification than was usual in the Navy, for identifying birds; and presently he said, 'Tell me, Mr Reade: frigates have but one row of guns, have they not?'