Patrick O'Brian: The far side of the world

'Forgive me, Heneage,' said Jack. 'But I must just look into the port-admiral's office. Be a good fellow and step into Richardson's' - nodding towards the open door of a cool shaded tavern - 'and wait for me over a bottle. I shall not be long, I promise you.'

He was not long. He came into the big sanded room, bowing under the lintel, his naturally florid face somewhat redder than usual and his bright blue eyes brighter still with anger. He sat down, drank a glass of pale ale, and whistled a stave. 'Do you know the words they sing to that?' he asked, and Dundas replied,

'We'll give you a bit of our mind, old hound, Port-admiral, you be damned.'

'That's right,' said Jack.

At much the same time Stephen said to Martin, 'That makes eight more black storks: seventeen in all, I believe.'

'Seventeen it is,' said Martin, checking the list upon his knee. 'What was that smaller bird low down on the left?'

'It was only a bar-tailed godwit,' said Stephen.

'Only a bar-tailed godwit,' repeated Martin, laughing with delight. 'Paradise must be very like this.'

'Perhaps a little less harsh and angular,' said Stephen, whose meagre hams rested on a sharp limestone edge. 'Mandeville reports that it has mossy walls. But let it not be supposed that I complain,' he added, and indeed his face, usually withdrawn and reserved, fairly shone with pleasure.

The two of them were sitting high-perched on the very chine or ridge of Gibraltar under an immense, cloudless, gentle blue sky, with the grey cliffs falling almost sheer to the Mediterranean on the left hand: on the right lay the distant bay with all its shipping, and straight ahead the dim peaks of Africa rose from a blueish haze. A soft south-west breeze cooled their cheeks, and across the strait there passed a long loose train of birds in an unhurried easy glide, sometimes single lines, sometimes much thicker troops, but always passing, the sky never empty. Some, like the black vultures and the storks, were huge; others, like the tired hobby that sat preening his red breeches on a rock not ten yards away, quite small; yet large or small they all glided on together without the least sign of animosity, sometimes wheeling in close-packed spirals to gain height but most passing quite low overhead, so low on occasion that they had seen the crimson eye of the bearded vulture, the orange of the goshawk's.

'There is another imperial eagle,' observed Martin.

'So there is too,' said Stephen. 'God bless him.'

They had long since given up counting the white storks and the various kinds of buzzard and harrier, the smaller eagles, the kites and commoner vultures, and now they concentrated upon the rarest of the rare. On the left hand, beyond the hobby, in a cleft overhanging the sea, a peregrine kept up a strong harsh hacking cry, presumably expressive of desire; and on the right hand, lower down, Barbary partridges could be heard: the air was filled with the scent of lavender and lentiscus and a hundred other aromatic shrubs hot in the sun.

'There, there!' cried Stephen. 'Below the storks - to the right - that is a lappet-faced vulture, my dear sir. My lappet - faced vulture at last. You can see her pale, well-rounded thighs, almost white.'

'What a satisfaction,' said Martin, following the bird with his single, carefully shaded eye, and some minutes after it had vanished, 'There is an odd creature almost exactly over your ship.'

Stephen fixed it with his pocket spyglass and said, 'I believe it must be a crane, a solitary crane. How curious.' He also fixed Jack Aubrey on the quarterdeck of the Surprise, stalking to and fro like Ajax and waving his arms about. 'Why, he looks as though he were in quite a passion,' he murmured indulgently: he was used to passion in the executive officers at these times of preparation for a voyage.

But he was not used to quite this degree of passion. Captain Aubrey had just received the message, delivered by a frightened, breathless, purple-faced Calamy, that Dr Maturin sent his compliments, but 'did not choose to come'.

'Does not choose to come,' cried Captain Aubrey. 'Red Hell and bloody death.'

'He said he thought he might not dine today at all,' quavered Calamy.

'And you bring me this message, wretched boy? Do you not know that in such a case you must insist, you must explain?'

'I am very sorry, sir,' said Calamy, who at twelve was quite wise enough not to protest that he had insisted, he had explained, until he had been positively cuffed and threatened with worse if he did not go away and stop frightening the birds - his unnecessary, vehement gesticulations had already startled three Andalusian hemipodes that were just about to land - where was he brought up, to be prating so to his elders? Did he not know shame or decency at all? He now bowed his head, and his Captain asked him whether he did not know that an officer-like fellow must not be put off with answers like that from persons who, however great their learning and virtues, were essentially civilians?

But Jack was never one for prolonged moralizing, still less now, when every minute counted: he broke off, glanced fore and aft, trying to remember who was in the ship and who was not. 'Pass the word for Sergeant James,' he said, and to the sergeant, 'Pick four of your quickest-moving Marines and follow Bonden up to the top of the Rock at the double: Mr. Calamy will point out the way. Bonden, go ahead and make the situation clear even to civilians, if you can: in any event I expect to see the Doctor here at two. Killick will have his number one rig ready to be put on.'

At four bells in the afternoon watch, or two by the clocks in the town, Jack was sitting in front of a small looking-glass in his sleeping cabin with a freshly-laundered cravat the size of a topgallant studdingsail spread out ready to be folded about his neck when he heard a confused thumping, bundling sound on deck, followed by Killick's shrill, indignant, shrewish voice, a cross between that of a much-tried longsoured nursemaid and of an uncommonly rough tarpaulin hatted tobacco-chewing foremast-hand, and by some indistinct oaths.

A little before five bells he came on deck in all the glory of full dress, with the Nile medal in his buttonhole, his Turkish decoration, a diamond chelengk, blazing in his goldlaced hat, and his hundred-guinea Patriotic Fund sword at his side; and there he found Stephen, looking stuffed and sullen in his rarely-worn good coat, a comparatively subfusc garment. The frigate's barge lay at the starboard mainchains, the bargemen in gleaming white trousers and frocks and broad straw hats, the Captain's coxswain standing at the tiller, with Mr Midshipman Williamson and the sideboys waiting at the rail, while the bosun and his mates held their calls ready poised: it was all a shocking waste of time; but high ceremonial waste, like blazing away for King Charles' restoration and Gunpowder Plot, was no doubt necessary for the good of the service. Jack glanced about the harbour and saw boats converging upon the Caledonia from all the King's ships; and the port-admiral's barge had already put off from the shore. He smiled at Stephen, who gave him a bitter look, and said, 'Lead on, Macbeth.' Macbeth instantly sprang from the larboard gangway, where he had been stand ing by a tackle-fall, ready to get on with the ship's urgent business the moment the ceremony was over. Standing before his Captain with his huge bare red bony splay feet brought neatly together he plucked off his blue bonnet and asked, 'Wheer tu, sirr?'

'No, no, Macbeth,' said Jack, 'I did not mean you; and in any case I should have said Macduff...'

'Macduff, Macduff,' the cry went through the ship. 'Sawny Macduff to the quarterdeck at the double.'

'Belay there,' cried Jack. 'Scrub it. No, no. My meaning is, the officers may go over the side as soon as they please.'