Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

'I cannot see it,' said Standish, leaning far out over the rail. 'Where is this messenger?'

'Why,' said Martin, 'it is that rope they are putting over the rollers just beneath us in the waist, a vast loop that goes from the capstan to two other stout vertical rollers by the hawse-holes and so back.'

'I do not understand. I see the capstan, but there is no rope round it at all.'

'What you see is the upper capstan,' said Stephen with some complacency. 'The messenger is twined about the lower part, under the quarterdeck. But both the lower and the upper part are equipped with bars: both turn: both heave, as we say. See, they undo the deck-stoppers, or dog-stoppers as some superficial observers call them - they loosen the starboard cable, the cable on the right-hand side - they throw off the turn about the riding-bitts! What force and dexterity!'

'They bring the messenger to the cable - they bind it to the cable with nippers.'

'Where? Where? I cannot see.'

'Of course not. They are right forward, by the hawse-holes, where the cable comes into the ship, under the forecastle.'

'But presently,' said Stephen in a comforting tone, 'you will perceive the cable come creeping aft, led by the messenger.'

John Foley, the Shelmerston fiddler, skipped on to the capstan-head; at his first notes the men at the bars stepped out, and after the first turns that brought on the strain, three deep voices and one clear tenor sang

Yeo heave ho, round the capstan go,

Heave men with a will

Tramp and tramp it still

The anchor must be weighed,

the anchor must be weighed

joined by all in a roaring

Yeo heave ho

Yeo heave ho

five times repeated before the three struck in again

Yeo heave ho, raise her from below

Heave men with a will

Tramp and tramp it still

The anchor's off the ground,

the anchor's off the ground

'There is your cable,' said Martin in a very much louder voice, after the first few lines.

'So it is,' said Standish; and having stared at it coming in like a great wet serpent he went on, 'But it is not going to the capstan at all.'

'Certainly not,' said Stephen in a screech above the full chorus. 'It is far too thick to bend round the capstan; furthermore, it is loaded with the vile mud of Tagus.'

'They undo the flippers and let the cable down the main hatchway and so to the orlop, where they coil it on the cable-tiers,' said Martin. 'And they hurry back with the flippers to bind fresh cable to the messenger as it travels round.'

'How active they are,' observed Stephen. 'See how diligently they answer Captain Pullings' request to light along the messenger, that is to say pull along the slack on that side which is not heaving in -'

'And how they run with the flippers: Davies has knocked Plaice flat.'

'What are those men doing with the other cable?' asked Standish.

'They are veering it out,' answered Martin quickly.

'You are to understand that we are moored,' said Stephen. 'In other words we are held by two anchors, widely separated; when we approach the one, therefore, by pulling on its cable, the cable belonging to the other must necessarily be let out, and this is done by the veering cable-men. But their task is almost over, for if I do not mistake we are short stay apeak. I say we are short stay apeak.'

But before he could insist upon this term, better than any Martin could produce, and reasonably accurate, a voice from the forecastle called 'Heave and a-weigh, sir,' whereupon Jack cried 'Heave and rally' with great force. All the veerers ran to the bars, the fiddler fiddled extremely fast, and with a violent, grunting yeo heave ho they broke the anchor from its bed and ran it up to the bows.

The subsequent operations, the hooking of the cat to the anchor-ring, the running of the anchor up to the cat.head, the fishing of the anchor, the shifting of the messenger for the other cable (which of course required a contrary turn), and many more, were too rapid and perhaps too obscure to be explained before Jack gave the order 'Up anchor' and the music started again; but this time they sang

We'll heave him up from down below

Way oh Criana

That is where the cocks do crow

We're all bound over the mountain

to the sound of a shrill sweet fife.

The ship moved easily, steadily over the water - the tide was making fast - and presently West, on the forecastle, called 'Up and down, sir.'

'He means that we are directly over the anchor,' said Stephen. 'Now you will see something.'

'Loose topsails,' said Jack in little more than a conversational voice, and at once the shrouds were dark with men racing aloft.

He gave no more orders. The Surprises lay out, let fall, sheeted home, hoisted and braced the topsails with perfect unity, as though they had all served together throughout a long commission. The frigate gathered way, plucked the anchor from its bed and moved smoothly up the Tagus.

'If you can bring her to one of the moorings in the middle reach in time for me to have dinner in Black Horse Square, you shall have an extra five guineas,' said Jack as he handed the ship over to the pilot.

'By three o'clock?' said the pilot, looking at the sky and then over the side. 'I believe it may be done.'

'Even earlier, if possible,' said Jack. He was an old-fashioned creature in some ways, as his hero Nelson had been; he still wore his hair long and plaited into a clubbed pigtail, not cut in the short modern Brutus manner; he put on his cocked hat athwartships rather than fore and aft; and he liked his dinner at the traditional captain's two o'clock. But tradition was now failing him; naval habits were beginning to ape those of the land, where dinner at five, six, and even seven was becoming frequent; and at sea most post-captains, particularly if they had guests, dined at three. Jack's stomach was even more conservative than his mind, but at present he had trained it to hold out with tolerable good humour until half past two.

The hands had their dinner (two pounds of salt beef, one pound of ship's bread and a pint of grog) as soon as the ship was over the worst of the bar; the members of the gunroom had theirs at one (it smelt to Jack like uncommonly good roast mutton) and when Belem was clear on the larboard bow they came on deck, rosy and comfortable, to view the tower and Lisbon itself, white in the distance beyond.

Jack went below to see whether a biscuit and a glass of madeira would quieten the wolf within, and there he found Stephen with an almanack and a small paper of calculations.

'I dare say you are working out when we shall pick up the trades,' he said. 'Will you join me in a glass of madeira and a biscuit? We had a very early breakfast.'

'With all my heart. But the trade winds I leave to you entirely: what I am looking for is the saint's day upon which my daughter will most probably be born. These things cannot be foretold to the day nor even to the week, so I shall have to spread my offerings pretty wide; but on the most likely, most physically orthodox day, what clouds of incense will go up! What mounds of pure beeswax! And in looking through this almanack I see that it was on Saint Eudoxia's day, when the Ethiopian Copts so strangely celebrate Pontius Pilate, that Padeen would have been hanged but for your great kindness. I shall have a Mass said for his intention as soon as we get ashore.'

'It was no great kindness I do assure you. When I went they looked very grave because they thought I wanted a sinecure or a place at court for a friend, but when I said it was only a man's life they cheered up amazingly, laughed, told me the weather had been delightful these last days, and gave me the paper out of hand. But tell me, why are you so sure that Diana is going to be brought to bed of a girl?'