Patrick O'Brian - The Truelove

'Now, sir,' said Wainwright, they having returned to the cabin, 'I must tell you that there is an English ship and several English seamen detained in the island of Moahu, which lies south of...'

'I know its position,' said Jack. 'But I have no accurate chart.'

'Perhaps I had better start by saying that my owners have six ships employed as whalers or as fur-traders to Nootka Sound and the northwards, and these ships often appoint to meet - and others do the same, it being so convenient - at Moahu to refresh and exchange news or owners' instructions before going on either to Canton for the Nootka ships or down into the Southern Ocean for the rest of their whaling cruise, right down, sometimes by way of Sydney Cove, to Van Diemen's Land or beyond. And if the fur-traders have not done well in their first season, they lie there and sail back early in the next, before the Americans come round the Horn. Most of the year, when the north-east trades are blowing, we put into Eeahu; but the rest of the time we lie at Pabay, in the north.'

'Will you draw me a rough map?' asked Jack, passing pencil and paper.

'It is easy enough where Moahu is concerned,' said Wainwright, and he drew a large figure of eight with a broad waist. 'North to south is about twenty miles. The smaller lobe at the top, with the harbour of Pabay in the north-east, is Kalahua's territory. The division between the two rounds is very rough mountain country with forest going far down each side. The southern lobe belongs to Puolani. Rightly speaking she is queen of the whole island, but some generations ago the chiefs in the north rebelled, and now Kalahua, who has knocked all the other northern chiefs on the head, says he is the rightful king of all Moahu, Puolani having eaten pork, which is taboo to women. Everyone says that is nonsense. She certainly eats the usual pieces of enemy chiefs killed in battle, according to custom, but she is a very pious woman, and would never touch pork. So you see, sir, there is war between north and south. Our owners have told us to keep out of it, because we have to use the two harbours, Pabay in the north-east, a good harbour in a deep inlet with a stream at its head when the wet south winds are blowing, and Eeahu in the south, in Puolani's country, when the trades make it difficult to get out of Pabay. For my own part I should have backed Puolani, who has always been kind to us and true to her word, and who is after all only a poor weak woman, whereas Kalahua is an ugly scrub, not to be trusted. The forces used to be about equal, and both sides treated us civilly; but when I came into Pabay this last time, to join our ships Truelove, William Hardy, and Heartsease, John Trumper, I found everything was changed. Kalahua had a parcel of Europeans, some with muskets, and he had fallen out with our two skippers. He wanted to what he called borrow their guns, but he did not ask right out and make a point of it until Hardy was in a very awkward position, having heaved down his ship to come at a leak. They were still temporizing when I came in, but by then Kalahua had seized a score of their men on one pretext or another - theft; fornication, by God; touching taboo fruits or trees - and when I went to see him he declared the ships should have no water, no supplies, and the men should not be released until his demands were satisfied. There was something odd and false and disagreeably confident about him, and he kept on putting off our meetings - he was gone up the country, he was sleeping, he was out of sorts.

'It was when he was really gone up into the mountains with his Europeans that a fourth ship of ours, the Cowslip, Michael McPhee, appeared in the offing. I signalled to her not to cross the bar, and sent off one of our Kanaka hands with a message, telling McPhee to water at Eeahu, Puolani's harbour, if necessary, and then to pelt down to Sydney Cove like smoke and oakum and tell them how we were being used.

'Before Kalahua returned a couple of big pahis came in, one of them belonging to an old friend of mine, a very good friend, an Oahu chief, last from Molokai in the Sandwich Islands, and I learnt why Kalahua was so confident. He was expecting the Franklin, a heavy privateer carrying twenty-two nine-pounders, sailing under the American flag but manned by Frenchmen from Canada and Louisiana: and to be sure, though Kalahua had kept his white men from us, I had seen something of them and they certainly spoke French among themselves or when they saw me a damned odd sort of English. And I heard that the French owner, who had been in Hawaii picking up hands, was a man who could not keep quiet, who had to be talking, and he had told a handsome Marquesas girl, half French herself, that he did not value Kalahua a pinch of snuff, an odious fellow, false through and through, and that as soon as the two sides, north and south, had weakened one another enough, Kalahua should be knocked on the head, Puolani's war-canoes (her chief strength) should be destroyed with a couple of broadsides and that Moahu, at the wish of its people and of those surviving chiefs who knew what was good for them, should be declared a French possession. The natives would be taught to cry Vive I'Empereur, which was fair enough, since it was the French government that had put up the money for the ship. But once the war was over there would be quite a different regime, with equality for everyone, all property held in common, justice, peace and plenty - everything settled by discussion.'

'That puts a different face on the matter,' said Jack, thinking of Stephen with great relief.

'Yes, sir. So I posted a sentinel to watch for the Franklin. There was nothing to be done about the Truelove. She was hove down right in the village and in any case the tide would not serve: but Trumper of the Heartsease and I prepared our ships as well as we could, though we only had what you expect in merchantmen. And that same evening the sentinel came hallooing down - there was a ship in with the land, making for the harbour under an easy sail. We had been delayed so long the trades were blowing again: the wind was north-easterly, but by the grace of God there was just enough north in it to let us scrape past the south headland close-hauled. Heartease went first, and she got off with no more than a hole or two in her topsails, but the Franklin cracked on to make all sneer again, throwing a bow-wave as wide as her fore-course and ranging up fast - the Daisy was never built for speed - and he gave us a broadside that killed our carpenter and his mate and shattered the boats on the boom. As cruel a broadside as ever I saw, and I thought if this goes on I shall have to strike. But it was only luck: his next went overhead and before he could fire again - damned slow, I may say, by your standards, sir - I had the satisfaction of seeing his fore topmast go by the board. I like to think it was the stern-chaser I had just fired that cut the backstay but it was more likely an absurd overpress of sail. Any gate, he came up into the wind, and he had not the command of his helm to follow me through the dog-leg passage in the reef."

The way had been coming off the frigate for some time now, and Wainwright, glancing at the shore, said 'Speaking of channels, sir, perhaps I should show your helmsman just how this one lies: we are quite near, and it is no good following the pahi - they never can believe we draw so much water.'

On deck Jack found that they had indeed come very close to the reef. There were leadsmen in the chains on either side; Davidge was on the fore topsail yard conning the ship; Pullings had hands at the braces and halliards, with the anchor dangling a-cockbill. 'Captain Wainwright will take her in,' said Jack to Pullings, and Wainwright, guiding himself by familiar landmarks, set about the awkward turns with such obvious competence that all hands relaxed.

All hands, that is to say, except the medical men and Clarissa Oakes: for her part she had never supposed that there was any danger, and her whole being was taken up with the shore, its brilliant coral strand, its coconut-palms leaning in every direction, their fronds streaming with infinite grace, the village of wide-spread little houses among irregular fields and gardens, a path leading into the green forest. Maturin's and Martin's eyes and telescopes, on the other hand, were fixed upon the whaler, lying close in-shore, leaning heavily; she had a stage over her side.