Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

Spirits were not allowed aboard a King's ship except in the form of the official grog: Stephen had no notion of what was the case in a privateer, nor did he care; but he did know what drink could do to his countrymen and since then he had been trying to think of some way of turning the hitherto sober Padeen away from it. Already the young man's behaviour had changed; although he was still perfectly well conducted there was an approach to something like confidence - no very amiable quality in the Irish sense of the word - and sometimes a strange dreamy exhilaration.

In fact Padeen was by now a confirmed opium-eater or rather drinker, a sixty-drops a day man. When he was ashore he had made some attempts at buying a supply of his own, but since he had caught no more of the name than tincture and since he could neither read nor write he had no success. 'There are hundreds of tinctures, sailor,' the chemists had said. 'Which one do you want?' and answer he had none. The alcohol was easier. Very early in his acquaintance with the tincture he had heard Dr Maturin observe that it was compounded with respectable brandy, and at present it was with the very best the grog-shop could produce that Stephen's own dose was steadily diluted: steadily, but so gradually that he never suspected it, any more than he suspected the possibility of the medicine chest's being opened. Yet given far more than common strength nothing was easier. The Surprise had begun life as the French Unite, and her medicine-chest, which was built into her, had its massive door hung on pintles in the French manner and an exceedingly powerful man could lift it straight off its hinges.

Stephen's dissatisfaction vanished in the morning, however. He was up very early and clear-headed, a rare thing for him, though somewhat less unusual now that his effectual night-draught was so diminished. A rapid tour of the sick-berth showed him that Edwards' leg was almost certainly safe and that no particular urgency attached to any of the other cases, and he went on deck; here he found the air warm and still, the sky pure, with the remains of night over the land and the entire eastern bowl a delicate violet shading down to pale blue on the horizon. Swabs were busy, advancing towards him; they had already reached the hances, and Tom Pullings, the officer of the watch, was sitting on the capstan with his trousers rolled up, out of the coming flood. 'Good morning, Doctor,' he called. 'Come and join me on neutral ground."

'Good morning to you, Captain Pullings, my dear,' said Stephen. 'But I see that my little boat is attached to those cranes at the back, and I have a month's mind...'

The form of the Surprise did not allow her to have the quarter-davits that were coming into general use and that equipped all modern ships of her size, but she did have a pair over the stern, and these at present held the Doctor's skiff.

'Avast swabbing "nd lower down the skiff," cried Pullings. 'Doctor, step into it amidships and sit quite still. Handsomely, now: handsomely does it.'

They set him gently down on the smooth water and he rowed off towards Old Scratch - rowed, that is to say, in his odd paddling fashion, facing the direction in which he meant to go and pushing his oars: this he justified by stating that it was far better to look steadily towards the future rather than to gaze back for ever at the past; but in fact it was the only way he could avoid turning in circles.

The island had not disliked the foul weather: far from it. Although no one could have called it dusty or in need of swabbing before, it now gave an impression of extraordinary brilliance and cleanliness: the turf had taken on a far, far more lively green, and now that the sun had climbed high enough to send his beams over the cliff that formed the seaward side, daisies were opening their innocent faces in countless thousands, their first adventure, a delight to the heart. He walked up the slope to the rocky edge, and there spread before him and on either hand was the immeasurably vast calm sea. He was not very high above it, but high enough for the busy puffins, hurrying out to sea or back with their catch, to seem quite small below him as he sat there among the sea-pink with his legs dangling over the void. For some time he contemplated the birds: a few razorbills and guillemots as well as the puffins - remarkably few gulls of any kind - the oyster-catchers' parents (he was confident of the chicks' well-being, having seen the neat shells from which they had hatched) - some rock-doves, and a small band of choughs. Then his eye wandered out over the sea and the lanes that showed upon its prodigious surface, apparently following no pattern and leading nowhere, and he felt rising in his heart that happiness he had quite often known as a boy, and even now at long intervals, particularly at dawn: the nacreous blue of the sea was not the source (though he rejoiced in it) nor the thousand other circumstances he could name, but something wholly gratuitous. A corner of his mind urged him to enquire into the nature of this feeling, but he was most unwilling to do so, partly from a dread of blasphemy (the words 'state of grace' were worse than grotesque, applied to a man of his condition), but even more from a wish to do nothing to disturb it.

This importunity had hardly arisen before it was gone. A rock-dove, gliding placidly along before him, abruptly swerved, flying very fast northwards; a peregrine, stooping from high above with the sound of a rocket, struck a cloud of feathers from the dove and bore it off to the mainland cliff, beyond the Surprise. As he watched the falcon's heavier but still rapid flight he heard eight bells strike aboard, followed by the remote pipe of all hands to breakfast and the much more emphatic roar of the hungry seamen: a moment later he saw Jack Aubrey, mother-naked, plunge from the taffrail and swim out towards Old Scratch, his long yellow hair streaming behind him. When he was half way across two seals joined him, those intensely curious animals, sometimes diving and coming up ahead to gaze into his face almost within hand's reach.

'I give you joy of your seals, brother,' said Stephen, as Jack waded ashore on the little golden strand, where the skiff now lay high, dry and immovable. 'It is the universal opinion of the good and the wise that there is nothing more fortunate than the company of seals.'

'I have always liked them,' said Jack, sitting on the gunwale and dripping all over. 'If they could speak, I am sure they would say something amiable, but Stephen, have you forgot breakfast?'

'I have not. My mind has been toying with thoughts of coffee, stirabout, white pudding, bacon, toast, marmalade and more coffee, for some considerable time.'

'Yet you would never have had it until well after dinner, you know, because your boat is stranded and I doubt you could swim so far.'

'The sea has receded!' cried Stephen. 'I am amazed.'

'They tell me it does so twice a day in these parts,' said Jack. 'It is technically known as the tide.'

'Why, your soul to the Devil, Jack Aubrey,' said Stephen, who had been brought up on the shores of the Mediterranean, that unebbing sea. He struck his hand to his forehead and exclaimed 'There must be some imbecility, some weakness here. But perhaps I shall grow used to the tide in time. Tell me, Jack, did you notice that the boat was as who should say marooned, and did you then leap into the sea?'

'I believe it was pretty generally observed aboard. Come, clap on to the gunwale and we will run her down. I can almost smell the coffee from here.'

Towards the end of their second pot Stephen heard a shrill fiddle no great way forward and after its first squeaks the deep Shelmerstonian voices chanting

Walk her round and walk her round, way oh,

walk her round Walk her round and walk her round,

way oh and round she goes.