Patrick O'Brian - The Truelove

'Can we not outsail her? Run clean away?'

'Of course not, Stephen. How can you be so strange? Both vessels are moving through the water at much the same pace, but whereas we, as a ship, a square-rigged ship, can only come up to within six points of the wind, she can come up to five; so all things being equal she must overhaul us in the long run - unless of course we put before the wind, which would put us far out of her reach but which would also be a clear proof of criminal evasion. If she is still there in the morning - if she has not run into the lee of Norfolk Island - and if there is no extraordinary change in the weather, I shall have to heave to. To stop,' he added, for a person who could call a cutter a ship after so many years at sea might need even simpler terms explained. 'But by that time Oakes's companion will be a free woman, Martin having done her business with book, bell and candle."

'You would never be forgetting Padeen, I am sure?' said Stephen in a low voice.

'No,' said Jack, smiling. 'I am not. We have no Judases aboard, I believe; and even if we had it would be a bold cutter-commander who would find him in my ship." For some minutes he studied the Eclair, the cutter in question, through his glass. She was well handled, and she might in fact be moving a little faster than the Surprise as well as lying closer to the wind; and her pennant was now quite certain when she came about: but she could not reach him by nightfall and the likelihood of her running beyond Norfolk Island into the main ocean was very small indeed even if she was in pursuit of him. He closed the telescope and said 'It is a very surprising thing, you know, the power of a young woman that sits quiet, self-contained and modest, looking down, answering civil - not like a booby, mark you, Stephen - civil, but not very much. A man could not speak chuff to such a girl, without he was a very mere Goth. Old Jarvey could not speak chuff to such a girl.'

'It is my belief, brother, that your misogyny is largely theoretical.'

'Ay,' said Jack, shaking his head. 'I love a wench, it is true; but a wench in her right place. Come, Stephen, we must shift our clothes. Tom and Martin will be with us in five minutes.'

In five minutes Captain Pullings in all his glory and Mr Martin in a good black coat walked into the great cabin: they were at once offered drinks to whet their appetite (a wholly unnecessary form at this time of the day) and as the bell struck they took their places at table. For the first part of dinner both sailors tried to make both medical men understand, really understand, why a craft that came up to within five points of the wind must eventually overtake another, moving at the same speed but coming up only six points, it being understood that they were both sailing close-hauled. After the roast mutton had gone away, a very mere skeleton, Jack in desperation sent for Reade and told him to ask Mr Adams for some bristol card and to cut out two isosceles triangles, the one with an apex of 135�, the other of 112�30'.

By the time triangles came the cloth had been drawn and Jack would have traced lines showing the direction of the wind and the turning points in port on the gleaming mahogany had Killick not cried out 'Oh sir, no sir, if you please: let me stretch lengths of white marline.'

The marline stretched, Jack said 'Now, gentlemen, the wind is blowing right down the middle, from the Doctor's waistcoat to mine; the parallel lines on either side show approximately where the vessels go about, beating up into it, towards him. Now I lay the six-pointer's triangle on the left-hand line with its base at right angles to the wind: I trace the ship's course, close-hauled, as far as the right-hand line, where she goes about; and I mark the place with a piece of bread. I do the same for each leg until I reach the turning-point of the sixth leg, marked with this dead weevil. Now I take the cutter's five-point triangle; I do the same; and as you see the cutter's fourth leg coincides almost exactly with the frigate's sixth. The distance made good to windward is pretty well four to three in favour of the fore-and-aft rig.'

'It cannot be denied,' said Stephen, looking closely at the weevil. 'But my head is more fully convinced than my heart - such a fine tall ship, that has run down so many enemies of superior force.'

'Would a trigonometrical proof please you more?' asked Tom Pullings.

Stephen shook his head and privately drew the weevil towards his plate. 'I looked into a book on trigonometry once,' said Martin. 'It was called A Simple Way of Resolving All Triangles, invaluable for Gentlemen, Surveyors, and Manners, carefully adapted for the Meanest Understanding: but I had to give it up. Some understandings are even meaner than the author imagined, it appears.'

'At least we all understand this capital port,' said Stephen. 'A glass of wine with you, sir.'

'By all means,' said Martin, bowing over his plate. 'It is indeed capital port; but this must be my very last. I have a ceremony to perform within the hour, as you know, and I should not wish to mumble and stumble my way through it.'

After dinner Stephen, who attended no services but funerals, retired to the sick-berth where Owen told him about his voyages to the mainland and islands of north-western America for furs and thence across by the Sandwich Islands, particularly Hawaii, to Canton, or sometimes home by way of the Horn or the Straits, with perhaps a stop at Mas Afuera for seal skins. And about other parts of the South Seas he had been to, especially Easter Island, which Stephen found more interesting than the rest, above all because of the prodigious figures on their exactly-dressed stone platforms, set up by an unknown people who had also left records on wooden tablets, inscribed in an unknown script and an unknown tongue. Owen was an intelligent, clear-headed man, who took pleasure in measuring things and pacing out distances and who, though nearly sixty, still had quite a good memory. He was still talking, though rather hoarse by now, and Stephen was still questioning him, when Martin came down for the evening doses and dressings.

'How I long to see Easter Island,' said Stephen to him. 'Owen here has been telling me more about the place. Do you remember how far off it is?"

'I believe the Captain said five thousand miles; but really, the bottle passed with such insistence after the ceremony that I am scarcely to be relied upon, ha, ha, ha.'

Padeen of course was present, as loblolly-boy: he had been in a pitiful state of anxiety ever since the cutter was sighted, and now as they all walked into the dispensary he bent to whisper in Stephen's ear, 'For the Mother of God, your honour will never forget me, I beg and beseech.' 'I will not, Padeen, upon my soul: I have the Captain's word itself,' said Stephen, and partly by way of reassuring him he went on in an ordinary tone to Martin, 'How did the service go? Well, I hope?'

'Oh yes, I thank you. Apart from the pitching, which nearly had us over twice, it might have been a private wedding in a drawing-room. The Captain gave away the bride very properly; the armourer had made a ring out of a guinea piece; all the officers were present and everything was entered in the log and signed. The bride startled me by appearing in a scarlet dress, but she thanked me very prettily when I offered my congratulations afterwards.'

'Had you not seen her before?'

'Certainly I had. I went forward earlier in the day to speak to her about the nature of the ceremony and to make sure she understood it - I had supposed she was quite a different kind of woman, barely literate... She was still wearing the clothes she had come aboard in, and I must say that although she looked very well as a bride, she looked far better as a boy. Her slight but not unattractive form gave me if not an understanding of paederasty then something not unlike it.'