Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

This evening there was no beating to quarters, and in such cases the last dog-watch was usually a time of music and dancing on the forecastle. But today the hands sat about in the warmth of the evening, talking quietly.

The sun set, leaving rosy light behind it for a while; hammocks were piped down, the watch was set, and the ship settled into her routine for the night, moving slowly north and south under reefed topsails, and drawing her boats after her. According to the letter of his private law, Jack Aubrey should have had them hoisted in; but as all the changes of this afternoon were to be reversed tomorrow for the homeward voyage and as the tired, dispirited men would have the heavy, useless labour twice over, he left things as they were.

Sitting at his desk in the great cabin he began a new sheet in the serial letter that he wrote to Sophie, a kind of private journal that she was to share.

'Here we are, my dearest Sophie, south of St Michael's in a sea as warm as milk: how I hope your weather is half as kind as ours. If it is, the yellow rose on the south wall will be blowing finely.

'I hope to see it in a week or so, for we turn back tomorrow. Our voyage has not been quite as fortunate as I had hoped, but as I told you we have one quite handsome little prize in the Merlin, and the new hands are shaping uncommonly well.

'Stephen says he has rarely seen a healthier crew - not a man in his list except for poor Padeen, with the face-ache - and this he puts down to their having very little to eat and nothing but small beer to drink. At the moment he and Mr Martin are in the boats towing astern, fishing for luminous insects with little hand-nets and strainers; and I must confess -'

Here his letter broke off, for he heard something so like gunfire that he put down his pen. In another moment it was repeated and he ran up on deck. Davidge and West were leaning their telescopes on the larboard rail. 'Right on the beam, sir,' said West. 'There they go again.' And clear under the darkness of the eastern sky Jack saw the gun-flashes, widely separated.

'They are ten miles away,' said Davidge, when the sound reached them at last.

'And at least half a mile apart,' said West.

A long pause while they studied the eastern horizon with the most extreme intensity, a pause during which the left-hand gun fired twice and that on the right, the southern gun, three times.

'Mr Davidge, put the ship before the wind,' said Jack.

'Shall I hoist in the boats, sir?' asked Davidge.

'Not yet. But pray get the Doctor aboard,' said Jack, hurrying below for his glass.

The ship turned slowly on the gentle breeze, steadying with her head due east, and from the foreyard he commanded a vast expanse of sea. It had been fairly clear before and it was perfectly certain now that what he had in his night-glass was a running fight between two ships, the pursuer about half a mile behind and in the other's wake, and both firing most deliberately with their chasers: two bow-chasers on the one hand and two stern-chasers on the other, perhaps with a third on her quarterdeck. The moon would not be up for some hours, but there was still a fair amount of diffused light from the zenith, and catching the gun-flash with the utmost accuracy of focus he established that the leading ship was a barque. The flash of the quarterdeck gun - and there was indeed a gun mounted on her quarterdeck - lit her spanker and showed the utter absence of a mizen topsail. He checked this twice, and called 'Deck. On deck, there. All hands to make sail.'

These might very well be two national ships, French and British, American and British, French and Spanish, and his intimate conviction that the chase was theAzul and the chaser the Spartan might be born of nothing but an urgent wish that it should be so: yet the barque rig for a man-of-war was virtually unknown in the Royal Navy and very rare in any of the others; and in any event, if he was wrong, it cost no more than one night's rest.

Below him the bosun's calls howled and wailed and he could hear the cries of Tumble up, tumble up, tumble up, rouse out there, you sleepers.

He came down from the yard and took over the deck: he knew very exactly what the Surprise liked in this wind - the only wind in which her present want of a mizen topsail was no disadvantage to her - and presently she was running directly before it with spritsail, foresail with studdingsails on either side, maintopsail and topgallant, both with their studdingsails, and a main royal above all.

'And the boats, sir?' asked Davidge anxiously. 'Do you wish to have them hoisted in?'

'No. With the wind right aft it would lose us more time than it would save. You have the Doctor aboard, however, I see. Doctor, should you like to come into the foretop and see what is afoot? Bonden, give the Doctor a hand, and bring me my come-up glass in its case.'

With the foretopsail furled the foretop gave a perfect view. Jack said 'There! Did you catch it? She has no mizen topsail: that means she is a barque, because with the wind on her beam or just abaft of it, she would certainly spread her mizen topsail if she had one. It stands to reason. Shall I tell you what I think has happened, always supposing my wild guess is right?'

'If you please.'

'I believe the Azul did lie to on that Tuesday, that the Spartan sailed east to look for her, steering rather more to the north than was quite right, and that they came in sight of one another late this afternoon. The Azul bore up and ran for it on what I suppose is her best point of sailing; but the Spartan has the legs of her, and came within range a little while ago. Since then they have been firing their chasers pretty steady, in the hope of knocking something away."

'What is the likely event, do you suppose?'

'If the Azul does not manage to knock something away, the Spartan will overhaul her and then their broadsides will come into play: then everything will- depend on their gunnery. But if the Spartan can get close enough without losing any important spar, her forty-two-pounder carronades must knock the stuffing out of the barque. No question about it."

'We are not to be idle spectators, sure?'

'I hope not, indeed. I doubt we can come up with them before the Spartan - for so I call her - overhauls the Azul, because we are directly before the wind, a poor point of sailing for any ship, even the Surprise. But with any sort of luck we should engage her not long after, for, do you see, as they move south and we follow them, so we bring the breeze more on our quarter, and may spread more canvas. We may engage her, and we may take her.' A pause. 'I am glad we did not change our long guns for carronades, however, as I had once thought of doing: I had much rather pepper her from a distance than come close to her forty-two-pound smashers. If we have to chase, I shall cast off the boats with Bonden and a few good hands in the pinnace. But of course, you know, there are a hundred possibilities. The Azul may haul her wind, cross the Spartan's hawse, rake her and board her in the smoke. A hundred things may happen."

Now they fell silent, as did all the hands crowding the forecastle below them, watching the distant battle as it moved slowly across the western sea in a night all the blacker for the flashes of the guns. Once the pursuer yawed to let fly with a full broadside and the brilliant glare showed that she was ship-rigged. 'The Spartan for a hundred pound,' muttered Jack.

'What is a come-up glass?' asked Stephen.

'Oh,' said Jack absently, 'it has a lens half way along divided into two, so that it gives you two images. When they separate the ship is moving from you; when they overlap she is coming nearer.'

An hour, an hour and a half went by, and slowly, slowly the pursuer made up the distance lost by her yaw and then began to gain. Now she was firing her forward guns; and now, from the Surprise, they were only half way to the horizon.