Patrick O'Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation

'Is there any more marmalade?' asked Stephen.

Jack passed it and went on, 'But religion is another thing, if you understand me. I mean to rig church this morning, and I wonder whether it would be improper to pray for a fair wind.'

'It is certainly allowable to pray for rain, and I know that it is quite often done. But as to wind... might not that have a most offensive resemblance to your present heathen practices? Might it not look like a mere reinforcement of your scratching backstays and whistling till you are black in the face? Or even, God forbid, to Popery? Martin would tell us the Anglican usage. We Papists would of course beg for the intercession of our patron or some perhaps more appropriate saint: I shall certainly do so in my private devotions. Yet even without Martin, I believe you would be safe in forming, if not in uttering, a vehement wish.'

'How I wish Martin were here: or rather that we were there, east of the Passage. How are they doing? How have they done? Will they be true to their time? Lord, how I wonder.'

'Who is this Martin they are talking about in the cabin?' asked Killick's new mate, a man-of-war's man from Wapping, left behind with six others from the Thunderer to recover from Batavia fever. He alone had survived; and as he had not only his proper discharge, smart-ticket and a commendation from his captain but had also sailed with Jack and Killick at various times in the last twenty years he had been taken on board at once. It was not that he was a particularly well-trained or genteel servant - indeed he was if anything even rougher than Killick - nor that he was an uncommonly expert seaman, being rated able only by courtesy; but he was a cheerful obliging fellow; and above all he was an old shipmate.

'You ain't heard of Mr Martin?' asked Killick, stopping short in his polishing of a silver plate.

'No, mate: never a word,' said the mate, whose name was William Grimshaw.

'Never heard of the Reverend Mr Martin?'

'Not even of the Reverend Mr Martin.'

'Which he had only one eye,' said Killick; and then, reflecting, 'No. Of course it was after your time. He was chaplain of Surprise in the South Sea, being a great friend of the Doctor's. They went collecting wild beasts and butterflies on the Spanish Main - serpents, shrunken heads, dried babies - curiosities, you might say - which they put up in spirits of wine.'

'I saw a lamb with five legs, once,' said William Grimshaw.

'Then when the Captain had his misfortune and took to privateering, Reverend Martin came along too, having had a misfortune likewise. Something to do with his bishop's wife, they said.'

'Bishops don't have wives, mate,' said Grimshaw.

'Well, his miss, his sweetheart, then. But he came along as surgeon's mate, not as parson, no parsons being wanted in a letter of marque.'

'Nor in a man-of-war neither.'

'And there he is as surgeon of Surprise at this wery moment, cutting up his shipmates - a fearless hand with a knife by now, having stuffed so many crocodiles and baboons and the like -and waiting for us, God willing, off of some islands beyond this Passage, a quiet, good-natured gent, not too proud to write a letter for a man or a petition for the ship's company: and your petitioners will always pray. They went west about and we went east about, to meet on the far side of the world, do you see; and the skipper wishes the Reverend was here this minute to ask whether it is lawful to pray for a wind, or would it be Popery.'

'Poor unfortunate buggers,' said Grimshaw, dismissing the questions of prayer.

'How do you make that out?' asked Killick, narrowing his eyes.

'Because why, if you sail steady westwards and you come to the line where the date changes, say if you cross it of a Monday, why, tomorrow is Monday too - and you have lost a day's pay.'

Killick pondered, looking shrewish, discontented, suspicious: then his face lightened and he cried 'But we been sailing steady eastwards, so if we cross it of a Monday, tomorrow is Wednesday and we have Tuesday's pay for nothing, ha, ha, ha! Ain't that right, mate?'

'Right as dried peas, mate.'

'God love you, William Grimshaw.'

This charming news spread round the ship, bringing about an effervescence of cheerfulness that lasted until the next day, so that when church was rigged Jack noticed a lack of the usual placid steady, even bovine attention, and after a few hymns and a psalm he closed his book, made a significant dismissive pause, and said 'And those that see fit may form an humble, earnest wish, though not a presumptuous request, for a fair wind.' He was answered by a surprising volume of sound: the humming and buzzing usual in chapels (many of the West Country hands were Nonconformists), a general 'Aye', something not unlike 'Hear him' - a confused surge of agreement, but so loud that he was displeased.

So loud that many of the Nutmeg's people were even more displeased, and they freely blamed their shipmates' want of discretion for the truly shocking weather she had to endure for a period that seemed to go on and on, past all reason, with both watches on deck much of the night and the warm, phosphorescent, tumultuous seas swirling deep in the waist of the ship and life-lines stretched fore and aft.

Jack had learnt the Nutmeg's ways in light airs, calms and contrary breezes; now he found how she behaved in squalls, fresh gales, stiff gales, hard gales and gales so strong that she either scudded under a close-reefed foresail, if she had sea-room, her people keeping the most zealous watch for uncharted rocks; or if she had not, as she had not among the frightful reefs and scattered islands of the Macassar Strait, she lay to, doing so as neat and dry as a duck, under her main staysail. Not only did she lie to admirably, but even in a very strong blow she retained her weatherly virtues, coming up to within six points of the wind or even slightly more and making very little leeway; and this as she quite often had to do, when an unexpected island loomed up and they put the helm hard over to claw off the unwelcome shore.

It is true that apart from three or four unnatural squalls that took her aback off Celebes, the gales were all nominally favourable, in that they came roaring over the white-crested sea from the south or south-west; and it was true that all the Nutmegs had known even stronger winds and far higher seas, with the added disadvantage of frostbitten hands, ice-covered decks and rigging, and the danger of cathedral-sized icebergs in the night, when they were sailing the late Diane east through the high southern latitudes; but now they took the foul weather as unfair, being so wholly unexpected - it was unnatural to be obliged to change the entire suit of sails three times, ending up with the coarse, terribly heavy stuff ordinarily used for a rough passage south of the Horn. Furthermore all this toil advanced them little: although winds came from the right quarter, the Nutmeg could scarcely make any use of them in these dangerous, largely unknown waters.

It was only when they had almost reached the equator again that the monsoon recovered some sense of what was fitting and the ship was able to send up her topgallantmasts once more. This was on a Friday. That day and most of the next were taken up with changing, drying and restoring sails while the Nutmeg glided smoothly over the innocent sea at four knots with lookouts posted on every eminence she possessed, and while the evening peace was shattered by the roar of the carronade exercise and the deeper single note of the chasers.

During the earlier calms all hands had had a great deal of practice with the neat little weapons, a mere seventeen hundredweight apiece, and their crews had even come to love them Jack could say with perfect truth, A good exercise, Mr Fielding' Adding, But it would have been even better with more midshipmen. We need at least two more forward and another on the quarterdeck'.