Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

'How does she handle, Tom?" asked Jack, nodding towards the Merlin.

'Oh, as sweet as you could wish, sir,' said Pullings. 'Dry and weatherly, and steers herself. But, sir, the ladies are creating something cruel - insist upon being taken to England directly - will report us - will have the law of us - we shall be transported to Botany Bay.'

'I thought I heard them screeching when you hailed us about the mackerel,' said Jack. 'You can tell them it will soon be over. We cannot stay out any longer than Thursday unless we eat our belts and the soles of our shoes. I shall have to put the people on short allowance tomorrow in any event: four upon two. And even if we did stay out, I do not think there would be any chance at all of finding our man after Thursday. Indeed, Thursday is the very farthest limit; perhaps even beyond it.'

'As for belts and shoes, sir, I have ventured to bring a few comforts over, in those bags. They were voluntary offerings,' he added, seeing Jack's look of reserve and feeling that the word 'pillage' might have entered his mind.

'Thankee, Tom,' said Jack absently. He walked forward, whistling, and scratched a backstay. 'If the wind hauls northerly again, and strengthens, as I hope and pray it will -'

'Amen, sir," said Pullings, also scratching the backstay.

'- then we shall probably leave you behind. Do not crack on beyond reason to keep company - nothing beyond your topsails - but rendezvous at 37� 30' N, 25� 30' W. And thank you for the comforts.'

'37� 3�' N, 25� 30' W it is, sir," said Pullings, stepping over the taffrail.

Yet in spite of the whistling and backstay-scratching - and there was not a seaman aboard who did not follow his captain's example - the wind died sickeningly throughout the day and throughout the night, so that the Merlin, far from being left behind, was obliged to take in everything but a double-reefed foresail to keep her station.

'It is a rum go," said Davidge, in the gunroom, 'but I could have sworn the wind would haul into the north, from the look of the day. So could the captain, although the glass was behaving so strangely. But perhaps drinking a health to Boreas might help.' He ladled punch into the glasses - Pullings' comforts had included a bottle of brandy for each of the officers - and said, 'Gentlemen, to Boreas.'

'To Boreas,' said West. 'But in decent moderation. No close-reefed topsails in the graveyard watch.'

'To Boreas, by all means,' said Stephen. 'Yet should he be absent, just for an hour or so in the morning, Mr Aubrey would have the consolation of swimming, and Mr Martin and I that of gathering specimens in the boat. We passed through a flotilla of nondescript jellyfish this afternoon, none of which could be reached with the hand-net.'

'We are very grateful for your mackerel and the bonitoes," said West, 'but I do not believe there is a single man in the ship that would give up a mile of southing for all the jellyfishes in the world: no, nor yet a hundred yards, even if you were to throw in a barrel of oysters for every mess.'

Yet Tuesday's sun, rising over an opalescent sea with barely a tremor on its surface except where the boat made its trifling wake, lit up the surgeons as they peered into the translucent depths or took up small organisms and floating weed. Jack Aubrey did not in fact console himself by swimming, though he had a great mind to it after a sleepless night, trying to urge the ship on in the dying breeze by force of will, while at every other glass the log took out less and less of its line, until at last not even a single knot ran off the reel, in spite of all the help the quartermaster could give it.

No swimming. As soon as there was light enough he began to organize stages over the side, and by a little after breakfast-time the ship, though drooping in every sail, was once again a hive of industry.

'This is perfect,' he called over the still water to Pullings in the Merlin, a quarter of a mile abeam and turning as she very slowly drifted farther. 'This is just what I have been praying for.'

'May God forgive you,' murmured Killick, a few feet below him in the now re-assembled cabin.

'Now we can finish off the upper black-strake and then deal with the lower: we can get right down to the copper.'

A few of the simpler men from Shelmerston may have been deceived, but those who had long sailed with Captain Aubrey either nodded to one another or smiled privately; they knew very well that there were times when a commanding officer was required to talk just like this, just as a parson was required to preach on Sundays. They did not believe him for a moment; yet this did not affect their purpose; and although the watch after watch of calm had taken away from their first enthusiasm, they worked on doggedly. If there was the slightest chance of getting the barky to the height of the Azores by Thursday, it would not be their fault if she was not ready; and indeed by noon both lower black-strakes were coated with sailcloth pinned tight with close-set copper nails above and below the waterline, the guns having been run across the deck in either case to heel the ship. The very last of the blue paint had been laid on, parsimoniously scraped out to cover the greatest possible extent; the blue did not quite meet the surface, but that did not signify, since it shaded down to a rim of mixed filth and cook's slush, in the usual sea-going way. At all events Guzman reported from Stephen's boat that she and the Azul now looked as like one another as two chick-peas from the same pod.

Now all that remained was changing her into a barque and striking down her tall and too-recognizable maintopgallant-mast; but this was an operation that Jack meant to leave to the last, since the rig would reduce her speed, and in the present case speed was everything.

It was everything, to be sure: and at noon the ship lay there motionless, not having run eighty miles since the last observation. Crueller still, crueller by far, was the breeze when at last it came, whispering up from the south right in their teeth and strengthening hour by hour.

The Surprise dutifully beat up into it, tack upon tack; but it was with death in their hearts that the men braced round the heavy yards and trimmed the sails to the finest possible degree.

Stephen and Martin came upon deck at the second cry of 'All hands about ship' after a prolonged session with their pelagic crustaceans, some of them certainly undescribed and quite unknown to science. 'What a pleasure it is to be moving again,' cried Stephen. 'How the ship bounds along!'

He caught Jack Aubrey's black look of contained exasperation, his tight-shut mouth; he noticed the grim faces of the waisters and afterguard, the general silence; and at the roar of 'Helm's-a-lee' he murmured 'Let us go downstairs again.'

They sat drawing their specimens by the light of the great stern window, and when Killick came in Stephen said to him, 'Pray, Killick, what is the general situation?'

'Well, sir,' said Killick, 'as far as I can see, we might as well pack up and go home. Here we are, plying to windward as hard as ever we can, toiling and moiling, all hands about ship every other glass; and what do we gain? Not above a mile's southing in the hour. And if the wind gets up, if we have to take our topgallants in, we shall lose ground. The barky is a very weatherly ship, but even she makes some leeway; and if it comes on to blow right chronic, even she must lose some southing.'

'Yet surely," said Martin, 'If this wind holds us back, it must do the same for the Azul'

'Oh,' cried Killick with a kind of howl, 'but don't you see the Azul as she calls herself is sailing west? Not south like we, but west? Sailing from Cadiz to St Michael's? So she has this wind on her beam, on her beam' - pointing to the ship's side to make his meaning clear - 'so there are those buggers with their sheets hauled aft, standing there with folded arms, spitting to leeward like the lords of creation, making six or seven knots as easy as kiss my hand, bearing off our lawful prize ..." Indignation choked him.