Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

Somewhere at the edge of remembrance he must have heard and just retained the cry of All hands unmoor ship and the familiar pipe, for now he said 'It is my belief they are pulling up the anchor, the creatures.'

'Oh Stephen,' cried Jack, 'I do beg your pardon. I had meant to speak of it as soon as we were aboard, but greed overcame me. The present idea is to weigh, tow out on the tail of the ebb and stand eastwards on what air there is. What do you think of it?'

'My opinion on the subject would be as valuable as yours on the amputation of young Edwards' leg, which I may say in parenthesis he is likely to keep, with the blessing; but I am aware that you speak only out of complaisance. My sole observation is that since the Diane is to sail on the thirteenth, I had expected, and dreaded, at least two more of these infernal nights."

'Yes,' said Jack. 'She is to sail on the thirteenth. But you know how often we have been windbound on this side of the Channel, particularly at Plymouth, and it would fairly break my heart to be there too late. What is more, it occurred to me in the middle watch that if the Diane's officers and senior midshipmen are anything like ours they will spend the night of the twelfth with their friends ashore, which should make cutting her out, if not easier, then at least somewhat less difficult. And less bloody, perhaps far less bloody.'

'So much the better. Have you considered how you shall set about it?'

'I have done little else since we left Shelmerston. As I believe you know, the squadron stands in by day and off by night. I hope to join them offshore on the night of the eleventh and consult with Babbington. If there is agreement, they will stand in at dawn as usual and we will stand somewhat farther out, spending the day changing long guns for carronades. On the night of the twelfth they retire, all lit up; we join again, receive their volunteers and sail in, all lights dowsed, and drop anchor in twenty fathom water pretty well abreast of the lighthouse, quite close in but just out of direct fire from the fort. But before this the train of boats will have pulled away in the dark, and as soon as we hear from them we start bombarding the east end of the town, as though we were going to land on the isthmus as we did before, and burn the yard. And while we are blazing away as fast as we can load - firing blank, so as not to knock the people's houses about their ears, which I have always thought poor sport - the boats do their business. That is how I see the main lines; but there is no defining the details until Babbington has given his views. Indeed, it is possible that he may not agree with the general plan.'

'You would never doubt William Babbington's good will, for all love?1

'No,' said Jack. And after a pause, 'No. But the position is not what it was when he was my direct subordinate."

In the silence Stephen heard the cry from the bows 'Up and down, sir,' and the much louder response from the capstan, 'Thick and dry for weighing.'

Shorly after this Tom Pullings appeared with a smiling face and reported that the ship was unmoored, that the launch and both cutters were out ahead with a tow-line, and that there was the appearance of a westerly breeze in the offing.

'Very well,' said Jack. 'Carry on, if you please, Mr Pullings.' And then hesitantly, with a hesitant smile, 'Fair - fair stands the wind for France.'

CHAPTER SIX

On the misty night of Thursday the Surprise kept a lookout aloft, and now from the foretopsail yard he called 'On deck, there. I think I see 'em.'

'Where away?' asked Jack.

'One point on the starboard bow. Not above two or three mile.'

The ship was under all plain sail, with what inconstant breeze there was mainly two points on her quarter; there was little to be seen ahead from the tops, therefore, so Jack, slinging his night-glass, climbed the taut, dew-damp shrouds to the main crosstrees. He gazed for some time, but nothing did he see until the haze parted and there, much closer than he had expected, lay a line of four ships, exactly spaced, close-hauled on the larboard tack: quite certainly the St Martin's squadron. On this warm night and in this calm sea most of their gun-ports were open and the light streamed out: he counted the ports, and he had time to see that the third ship in the line was the eighteen-gun Tartarus before the mist so blurred them that they were four yellow bars, dwindling until they vanished altogether. When they reappeared all the foremost ports were dark, eight bells having sounded, and aboard the Tartarus nothing was to be seen but a bright scuttle or two, a cabin port and the stern lantern. Eight bells struck on the Surprise's battered old bell; he heard the bosun's mate piping lights out down the hatchway; and he reached the deck as the watch was being mustered.

'Someone has been flogging the glass in Tartarus,' he said to Pullings, having given the course. 'They are a good two or three minutes before us.' And as he walked into the cabin, 'Lord, Stephen, I am so very deeply relieved. The squadron is hull-up in the north-east, and we shall speak them within the hour.'

'I am so glad that your uneasiness is removed,' said Stephen, looking up from the score he was correcting. 'Now perhaps you will sit down and eat your supper in peace: unless indeed you choose to wait and invite William Babbington and Fanny Wray. Adi has a superb bouillabaisse prepared, and there will be enough for four, or even six.'

'No. The council of war must certainly take place aboard the Tartarus.'

'Very true. And in any case some food now would help to calm your spirits. You were in a sad taking, brother; I have rarely known you so impatient.'

'Why,' said Jack smiling as he let himself down in his chair, 'I believe any commander would have found today quite trying.' He thought of attempting to make Stephen understand some of the difficulties the Surprise had had to contend with - lack of wind for much of the day and strong contrary currents. The spring-tides were near at hand, and in these waters the floods set strongly against her, so that although she seemed to be towing at a fair rate, with all the boats out ahead and the men pulling like heroes, her movement was forward only in relation to the surface, while the whole body of the sea, with the ship and the boats upon it, was in fact gliding backwards in relation to the unseen land for hours on end; while beneath all, like a ground-swell in Jack's mind, was the dread that the Diane, aware of the blockading squadron's true weakness, might have sailed some days ago. Then there was the descending cloud and drizzle - no noon observation, no sight of the coast to check a position that must be exact for the night-meeting, nothing but a dead-reckoning horribly complicated by currents and very frequent changes of course to take advantage of the light and variable airs. In addition to this there was no real certainty about Babbington's course that night: if the Surprise missed the squadron she would have to look for them inshore the next morning, off St Martin's, in sight of every French sailor, soldier or civilian possessed of a telescope, thus losing what seemed to him the very great and even perhaps decisive element of surprise. But these were regions into which Stephen could not follow him: no one without a nautical education could understand the refinements of frustration he had had to strive against; no one without an intimate knowledge of the sea could understand the infinity of things that could go wrong in so simple a voyage as this or the infinite importance of getting them all right - not that in the present case getting them right and joining the squadron offshore was in itself success, but it was a necessary condition for success; and the relief of having reached at least that stage was something that only another man with so much at stake could fully comprehend.