Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

The likelihood of an engagement tomorrow had never been anything but small and now it was smaller still; yet only a fool would reduce it even more, reduce it to the vanishing-point, after so much pains and such a glorious run. But then again there was such a thing as being too cautious by half: for the chance to have any existence at all the Surprise must be present somewhere to windward between St Michael's and St Mary. 'All these things have to be balanced against one another,' he said inwardly as he paced fore and aft; and the result of his balancing was that the Surprise sailed into the night with her topgallants abroad, whereas ordinarily she would have furled them and would have taken a reef in her topsails. She had done remarkably well today, and if she made no more than a steady five knots during the night she would still run off her two hundred miles from noon to noon: by daylight he should have his landfall on the starboard bow, the high rocky eastward tip of St Michael's.

'Jack,' said Stephen, looking up from his ruled paper as the cabin door opened, 'I have just finished transposing a Sammartini duo for violin and 'cello. Should you like to try it after supper? Killick promises us pease pudding from the galley, followed by his own toasted cheese.'

'Is it long?'

'It is not.'

'Then I should be very happy. But I mean to turn in early.

Since Tom is away in the schooner, I shall take the middle watch.'

Like many sailors Jack Aubrey had early acquired the habit of going to sleep almost as he put his head on his pillow; but this night he remained at least in part awake. It was not that his mind was torturing itself again with detailed memories of his disgrace, nor with the long-lasting and potentially ruinous law-suits that hung over him, but rather that, physically and mentally very tired indeed, he skimmed along the surface of the immediate present; he listened to the sound of the water against the ship's side and that composite, omnipresent voice that came from the wind in the taut rigging and from the play of the hull, while at the same time, and more consciously, he traced the pattern of the music they had played, occasionally drifting away but always hearing the bells in due succession and always aware of the state of the wind. It was a strange state, very rare for him, almost as restful as sleep and much nearer quiet happiness than anything he had known since his trial.

He was up and dressed when Bonden came to call him and he went straight up on deck. 'Good morning, Mr West,' he said, looking at the gibbous moon, clear in a small-flecked sky.

'Good morning, sir,' said West. 'All's well, though the breeze slackens a little. You are an uncommon good relief, sir.'

'Turn the glass,' said the quartermaster at the con; and Plaice, recognizable from his wheeze, padded forward and struck eight bells.

While the watches changed Jack studied the log-board. The wind had not varied a single point in direction, though as he knew very well it had decreased and readings of under six knots were more usual than those over.

It was a warm night, though the breeze was north of west, and walking aft to the taffrail he saw with pleasure that the wake was luminous, a long phosphorescent trail, the first he had seen this year.

He heard the usual reports: six inches of water in the well - very moderate indeed after such a blow; but she had always been a dry ship. And the latest heave of the log: almost seven knots. Perhaps the wind was picking up.

The watch could scarcely have been more peaceful: no call to touch sheet or brace, no movement but the helmsmen, the quartermasters and the lookouts spelling one another, the heaving of the log, the striking of the bell. Now and then a man might go forward to the head, but most remained gathered there in the waist, a few talking in low tones but most choosing a soft plank for a doze.

Jack spent the greater part of it gazing at the hypnotic wake as it spun out mile after mile, or watching the familiar stars in their course. The breeze did freshen from time to time and once he was able to chalk seven knots two fathoms on the board, but it was never enough for any change of sail, nor did it alter this faintly moonlit, starlit, dreamlike sailing over the dark sea except by adding a certain deep satisfaction.

He handed over to Davidge and the starboard watch at four in the morning, gave orders that he was to be called with the idlers, went below and plunged straight into his usual profound sleep.

At first light he was on deck again. The breeze was much as he had left it, though somewhat more westerly, the sky clear, except for cloud and haze to starboard. The idlers had already gathered round the pumps - a frowsty, squalid group, not yet washed or brushed - and well clear of the horizon to larboard the newly-risen Venus in her pale blue heaven looked all the purer by contrast. Having bade the quarterdeck good day, Jack said 'Mr Davidge, let us merely swab the decks this morning, and flog them dry. Then, with the idlers at hand - for pumping will not take them ten minutes - I believe we may start making sail.'

That was one of the advantages of a crew of this kind: with the emphatic exception of the surgeon and his mate all the idlers, the men who did not stand a watch, were very able seamen as well as being highly skilled in their particular line -the sailmaker and his mates, the armourer, the gunner's mates, the carpenter's crew, the cooper and all the rest of the specialists. Another advantage, reflected Jack Aubrey as he made his way up the weather rigging to the maintop and beyond, climbing easily, without hurry, scarcely thinking of his lofty path any more than a man going upstairs to the attic at home -another advantage was the hands' singular eagerness to please, not out of imposed discipline, but to avoid being turned away - something quite unknown in his life at sea. In an hour or so hammocks would be piped up, and they would be stowed in the nettings, properly rolled, in five or six minutes, without driving, oaths or rope's ends: not many King's ships could say as much.

'Good morning, Webster,' he said to the lookout at the topgallant-crosstrees.

'Good morning, sir,' said Webster, moving a few steps down the lee shrouds, leaving the crosstrees free. 'Nothing to westwards that I can make out, but maybe with your glass ..."

It was a very good glass, a Dolland achromatic; and sitting upon the crosstrees Jack focussed it carefully on the western horizon, sweeping the half-circle. But where St Michael's should have been was cloudbank, dark, sullen, purplish-grey and impenetrable. After a while he pushed the telescope shut, slung it over his shoulder, nodded to the lookout and returned to the deck.

There, while his mind checked and rechecked the figures for the night's run, he began to spread more canvas. Well before hammocks were piped up the Surprise was making just over eight knots, and as he went below to work out his calculations once more on paper and transfer them to the chart, with various allowances for leeway and error he said, 'It is absurd to be so anxious. I am become a perfect old woman.'

'On deck, there,' called Webster from the masthead. 'Land three points on the starboard bow.'

His shrill voice pierced the general noise of both watches moving about and talking much more than was usual in a King's ship: it came clear through the open cabin door, and Jack, with the chart in front of him and a tell-tale compass in the beam over his head, saw that Ribeira Point in St Michael's should in fact bear south-west by south, exactly three points on the starboard bow.

A knock on the door-jamb, and West came in. 'Land, sir,' he reported. 'Three points on the starboard bow. I caught sight of it from the deck for a moment - the haze is lifting - and it seemed to me about ten leagues off.'