Patrick O'Brian: The Thirteen Gun Salute

'Oh, sir,' cried Richardson, seeing him grasp the topgallant shrouds with his powerful hand. 'I will jump up in no time at ail. Please may I have the glass?'

'Nonsense,' said Jack.

'Sir, with respect, I am only just nine stone.'

'Bah,' said Jack, already clear of the crosstrees. 'Keep still. You will wring the mast, leaping about like a goddam baboon.'

Richardson said, 'Oh sir,' again, then fairly clasped his hands in prayer as he saw Jack's massive form mount the meagre spider's web. The leverage of that revered bulk on so great a length of slender mast with the ship rolling fifteen degrees and pitching somewhere near five hardly bore thinking about, and he had put his hand on the topgallant-cap for signs of movement or yielding when Jack, firmly perched up there, one arm hooked into the royal shrouds, called, 'I have them, by God. I have them. But only proas. Three sail of proas, standing south.'

They reached the deck by the backstays, gravity lending them wings or the equivalent. 'I am very sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Blyth,' said Jack to the purser, 'and I am very sorry not to bring you good news: they were only proas.'

'Only proas. Ruined his Sabbath nankeens to see them, and delayed the fucking poached eggs in red wine till they was fucking grape-shot in horse-piss,' said Killick to his mate, his harsh, shrewish voice perfectly audible in the cabin.

'As far as I could make out,' continued Jack, 'they were on a bowline, so perhaps our courses may converge.'

Converge they did, and with surprising rapidity: at pudding-time the word came down that they were hull-up from the deck; and when the dinner-party moved up to drink their coffee under the awning in the open air, the proas, three of them, were within gunshot - remarkably large craft, and with their outriggers remarkably stiff and fast, sailing on a wind. They were crammed with men.

'There is not much doubt of their calling,' observed Mr Blyth. 'All they lack is the Jolly Roger.

'Perhaps their presence explains the emptiness of these waters,' said Stephen. 'Perhaps they have swept the ocean clean.'

'Like pike in a stew,' said Richardson.

In his glass Jack could see their chief, a little wiry man with a green turban, high in the rigging and staring at the Diane under a shading hand. He saw him shake his turbaned head, and a minute later the proas hauled their wind, skimming away at thirteen or even fourteen knots on the moderate breeze.

Divisions, Articles, plum-duff, proas had marked that Sunday; but there was still another event to set the day apart. As the sun went down into the sea, a great red-golden ball, so into the eastern sky there rose the moon, a great golden-yellow ball, as full as a moon could be. It was not a rare phenomenon; indeed it was a very usual one; yet this time, for purity of sky, the particular degree of humidity and no doubt a host of less obvious, rarely coinciding factors, it had an extraordinary perfection, and all hands, even the ship's boys and the loquacious, thick-skinned Old Buggers, watched it in silence. All hands, including the Diane's captain and most of his officers, held it to be an omen; but there was no agreement about what it foretold until the next day, when they sailed westward, passing the False Natunas within a quarter of a mile. There was no flag, no flag whatsoever; but on the conspicuous rock, at the very top of its white streak, sat a large black bird, a cormorant with its black wings open and dangling.

It was in vain that Stephen asserted that a cormorant's presence was perfectly natural - they were usual in the southern parts of Asia - the Chinese had tamed them these many ages past. Everyone knew from that moment on that there was no chance of a meeting at this rendezvous; and although they looked out most dutifully that night and the next day, no one was much surprised when their eastward passage, their last, proved as fruitless as the first.

Jack sailed along the chosen parallel until the end of the chosen time for conscience sake, and then, sad at heart, he gave the order to steer south-west, following the course he and the master, working throughout the afternoon on all the available charts, all Dalrymple's and Muffitt's notes and observations, had plotted as the best for Java. Sad at heart and angry too, or rather deeply vexed: he and his clerk had been making their usual readings of temperature, salinity and so on for Humboldt before sunset; he had all his tubes, pots and instruments by his open book in the cabin, but before recording the figures he had retired to the quarter-gallery, his privy. Sitting there he heard a crash and a confused tumbling, and when he came out he found that Stephen had fallen off the chair from which he was trying to catch a spider under the skylight and had not only flung sea-water all over his records but had broken an improbable number of instruments - hygrometers, seven different kinds of thermometer, Crompton's device for measuring specific gravity: practically everything made of glass. He had also contrived to shatter the hanging barometer and tear down a sword-rack: all this in a very moderate sea.

By the time the cabin was in order darkness was at hand, and after quarters Jack climbed into the maintop to watch the rising of the moon; but for once the eastern sky was barred, promising rain by night, and he sat there on the folded studdingsails, feeling tired and discouraged. It had been a distinct effort heaving himself aloft and he had felt his weight: going much higher on Sunday he had not been aware of it at all. 'Is this age?' he wondered. 'God help us, what a prospect.' For a while he leant back against the sailcloth watching the stars right overhead and the truck of the mainmast weaving among them; without giving it any conscious attention he also heard the quiet steady working of the ship, the occasional orders, the mustering of the watch: Richardson had taken over; Warren would have the middle and Elliott the morning watch. He found that he must have dropped off, for two bells woke him: 'This will never do,' he said, stretching and looking at the sky- the moon was well up now, slightly out of shape and veiled by low cloud; the wind was much the same, but it was likely to bring up showers and thick weather.

In the cabin he found that Stephen had retired to the lower deck, so he called for toasted cheese and a long, heavily lemoned glass of grog, wrote a note in which Captain Aubrey presented his compliments to Mr Fox and had the honour of informing His Excellency that the ship was now heading for Java; that wind and weather permitting she might reach Batavia on Friday; and that it might be thought proper for the mission's servants to begin packing tomorrow, as it was not contemplated that the Diane should make any prolonged stay in harbour, sent it round by the duty-midshipman, and turned in early.

His cot moved with the ship's easy roll and lift, and the few other hanging objects moved with it, their rhythmic sway just visible by the light of the small dark-lantern at his side. He felt sleep coming, and as he turned on his side to welcome it the gleam of the epaulette on his best coat caught his eye: how he had longed for it all through the time he had been struck off the Navy List! Once in those days he had dreamt he saw it, and the waking had been indescribably painful. But now there it was in fact, solid, tangible: a deep happiness flooded through his heart and he went to sleep smiling. He woke again to the distant cry of 'Do you hear the news?' the traditional facetiousness at four o'clock in the morning to tell the watch below that they must relieve the watch on deck; then the voices, closer at hand, of Warren saying to Elliott, 'Here you have her,' together with course and orders, and then Elliott's formal repetition. And there was the voice of the ship, which told him that the breeze was steady: nothing could be more regular. And out of nothing came the thought that of course Stephen would have learned acquaintances in Batavia - the instruments could all be replaced or made by skilful artisans: the chain of careful measurements carried half way round the world would be broken only by a day or two - three at the most.