Patrick O'Brian: The Letter of Marque

'Admirably well put,' said Jack.

'But surely,' said Stephen, who loved un-Napoleonic France, 'he cannot have meant all Frenchmen?'

'I think he did,' said Schank.

'It was perhaps a little sweeping,' said Russell. 'But then so were his victories. And really, upon the whole, you know, there is very little good in the French: it is said that you can learn a great deal about a nation from its proverbial expressions, and when the French wish to describe anything mighty foul they say, "sale comme un peigne", which gives you a pretty idea of their personal cleanliness. When they have other things to occupy their mind they say they have other cats to whip: a most inhuman thing to do. And when they are going to put a ship about, the order is "a-Dieu-va", or "we must chance it and trust in God", which gives you some notion of their seamanship. I cannot conceive anything more criminal.'

Jack was telling Admiral Schank how Nelson had once asked him to pass the salt in the civillest way imaginable, and how on another occasion he had said 'never mind about manoeuvres; always go straight at 'em', and Stephen was about to suggest that there might be some good Frenchmen, instancing those who had made this sublime claret, when Admiral Russell, returning from a brief reverie, said, 'No, no. There may be exceptions, but upon the whole I have no use for them, high or low. It was a French commander, of excellent family as these things go with them, that played me the dirtiest trick I ever heard of in war, a trick as loathsome as a French comb.'

'Pray tell us, sir,' said Jack, privately fondling his letter.

'I will only give you the briefest summary, because if you are to sail on the turn of the tide I must not keep you. It was when I had the Hussar - the old Hussar - at the end of the last American war, in eighty-three, a neat weatherly little frigate, very like your Surprise, though not quite so fast on a bowline: Nelson had the Albemarle on the same station, and we got along admirably well together. I was cruising rather north of Cape Hatteras, in soundings - fresh gale in the north-north-west and hazy February weather - and I chased a sail standing to the westward with the starboard tacks on board. I gained on her and when we were quite near - damned murky it was - I saw she was under jury-masts, uncommon well set-up, and that she had some shot-holes in her quarter. So when she showed an English ensign reversed in her main shrouds and English colours over French at the ensign-staff it was clear that she was a prize to one of our ships, that she had been battered in the taking, and that her prize-crew needed help - that she was in distress.'

'It could mean nothing else,' said Jack.

'Oh yes it could, my dear fellow,' said the Admiral. 'It could mean that she was commanded by a scrub, a dishonourable scrub. I stood under her lee to hail and ask what they needed, and jumping up on to the hammock-netting with my speaking-trumpet to make them hear over the wind I saw her decks were alive with men - not a prize-crew at all but two or three hundred men - and at the same moment she ran out her guns, putting up her helm to lay me athwart hawse, carry away my bowsprit, rake me and board me - there were the boarders by the score in her waist all on tiptoe, all a-grinning. Still with my speaking-trumpet up I roared out "Hard a-weather" and my people had the sense to shiver the after-sails even before I had time to give the order. The Hussar obeyed directly, and so we missed most of the raking fire, though it did wound my foremast and carry away most of its starboard shrouds. We were both by the lee forward, almost aboard one another, and my people hurled cold round-shot down at their boarders -with prodigious effect - while the Marines blazed away as quick as they could load. Then I called out "Boarders away," and hearing this the scrub put up his helm, wore round and made sail before the wind. We pelted away after him. After an hour's brisk engagement his fire slackened and he clapped his helm a-starboard, running to windward on the larboard tack. I followed him round to jam him up against the wind, but alas there was my foremast on the point of coming by the board -bowsprit too - and we could not keep our luff until they were secured. However, we accomplished it at last, and we were gaining on the Frenchman when the weather cleared and there to windward we saw a large ship - we soon found she was the Centurion - and to leeward a sloop we knew was the Terrier; so we cracked on regardless and in a couple of hours we were abreast of him - gave him a broadside. He returned two guns and struck his colours. The ship proved to be La Sybille, thirty-eight - though he threw a dozen overboard in the chase - with a crew of three hundred and fifty men as well as some American supernumeraries, and the scrub in command was the comte de Kergariou - Kergariou de Socmaria, as I recall.'

'What did you do to him, sir?' asked Jack.

'Hush,' said the Admiral, cocking an eye at Schank. 'Old Purchase is fast asleep. Let us creep away, and I will run you back to your ship; the breeze serves, and you will not lose a minute of your tide."

CHAPTER TWO

Dawn found the Surprise far out in the grey, lonely waste that was her natural home; a fine topgallant breeze was blowing from the south-west, with low cloud and occasional wafts of rain but promise of a better day to come; and she had topgallantsails abroad although it was so early, for Jack wished to be out of the ordinary path of ships on their way to or from the various naval stations. He had no wish to see any of his men pressed - and no King's officer could resist the temptation of such a numerous, hand-picked crew of able seamen - nor had he any wish to be called aboard a King's ship to show his papers, give an account of himself, and perhaps be treated in an off-hand manner, even with familiarity or disrespect. The service was not made up solely of men with a great deal of natural or acquired delicacy and he had already had to put up with some slights; he would get used to them in time, no doubt, but for the present he was as it were flayed.

'Get under way, Joe,' said the quartermaster, turning the watch-glass, and a muffled form padded forward to strike three bells in the morning watch. The master's mate heaved the log and reported six knots, two fathoms, a rate few ships could equal in these conditions and perhaps none surpass.

'Mr West,' said Jack to the officer of the watch, 'I am going below for a while. I doubt the breeze will hold, but it looks as though we may have a pleasant day of it.'

'It does indeed, sir,' replied West, ducking his head against a sudden shower of spray, for the Surprise was sailing close-hauled south-south-east with choppy seas smacking against her starboard bow and streaming aft, mixed with the rain. 'How delightful it is to be at sea once more.'

At this early stage Jack Aubrey was three persons in one. He was the ship's captain, of course; and since no candidate he could approve had appeared among the many who came forward, he was also her master, responsible for the navigation among other things; and he was her purser as well. Officers commanding vessels sent on exploration were usually their pursers too, but this role had never fallen to Jack, and although as captain he had always been supposed to supervise his pursers and required to sign their books, he was astonished at the volume and complexity of the necessary accounts now that he came to deal with them in detail.

There was already light enough to work at the stern window of the great cabin - a curving series of panes the whole width of the ship that gave him a certain pleasure even at the worst of his unhappiness, as indeed did the cabin itself, a singularly beautiful room with scarcely a right-angle in it -curved deck, curved deck-head, inclined sides - and with its twenty-four feet of breadth and fourteen of length it provided him with more space than all the other officers together; and this was not everything, since out of the great cabin there opened two smaller ones, one for dining, the other for sleeping. The dining cabin, however, had now been made over to Stephen Maturin, and when breakfast arrived, Jack, having dealt with almost a third of the invoices, advice-notes and bills of lading, nodded towards its door and asked 'Is the Doctor stirring?'