Patrick O'Brian - The far side of the world

The Surprise was in fact on the edge of the waters where the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans run round the world in a continuous stream common to a large number of far southern animals; the sea had quite abruptly changed its colour, temperature and even character and although it was perhaps a little too early to hope for the larger albatrosses there was a strong likelihood of mallemawks, blue petrels, whale-birds and of course many more penguins. The day after this change both he and Stephen left their warm cots as soon as they heard the familiar grinding of holystones on the deck far above their heads - a sound that was felt rather than heard, coming as a vibration through the timbers and the taut cordage - and made their way to the gunroom, where the steward gave them each a bowl of hot burgoo, a kind of liquid porridge. By this time - for Martin had washed and even shaved by the light of a purser's dip - a faint grey was showing in the east, and Honey came below, bare-footed and red legged from the cold and streaming deck, to put on his shoes and stockings in the warmth. He told them that the worst of the wet would be gone, swabbed away, in five minutes, and that the night's drizzle had lifted: 'Wind at north-east and a following sea. But it is precious cold still: will you not wait until after breakfast? It will be stockfish, judging by the smell of glue.'

No, they said, they preferred to be in the open before hammocks were piped up and stuffed into those things along the sides, sadly obstructing the view. They would go upstairs in five minutes, as soon as the decks were reasonably...

'Oh sir, oh sir,' cried Calamy, running barefoot down. 'A huge great enormous whale - he is just alongside.'

Alongside he was, and vast he was: a sperm whale with his great blunt squared-off head abreast of the forechains, his dark body streaming aft far along the quarterdeck, perhaps seventy-five or even eighty feet of massive creature, giving such an impression of tranquil strength the ship seemed frail beside him. He lay with the upper part of his head and the whole uneven length of his back awash, and he blew: a thick white jet that spouted up and forward while a man could count three. Then after a slight pause he deliberately sunk his head for twice that time; raised it and blew again, breathed and blew, breathed and blew, all the while keeping alongside the ship with a slight rippling motion of that huge broad horizontal tail. He was a biscuit-toss away in the grey transparent water; he could be seen above it and below; and they watched him entranced, all silent along the rail.

'That is one of your old eighty-barrel bulls,' said the master at Stephen's elbow. 'Maybe ninety. The kind we call schoolmasters, though they are usually alone.'

'He does not seem at all alarmed,' whispered Stephen.

'No. I dare say he is deaf. I have known old ones deaf, aye, and blind of both eyes too, though they seemed to manage very well. Yet perhaps it is the company he likes; they seem to do so sometimes, the lonely ones; like dolphins. He will be going down any minute now; he has pretty well had his spoutings out, and...' The very shocking report of a musket in the silence cut him short. Darting a glance along the rail Stephen saw the Marine officer, still in his night-cap, with the smoking gun in his hands and a great fool's laugh upon his face. The whale's head plunged in a boil of water, his huge back arching and the tail coming clear, poised there above the surface for an instant of time before it vanished straight downwards.

Stephen looked forward to keep his extreme anger from showing, and on the gangway he saw a most unusual sight for this time of day, or any other for that matter: Mrs Lamb the carpenter's wife. She had been waiting for the silence to end and now she hurried towards him. 'Oh Doctor, if you please, can you come at once? Mrs Homer is took poorly.'

Poorly indeed, doubled up in her cot, her face yellow and sweating, her hair draggled about her cheeks and she holding her breath for the extremity of pain. The gunner stood there, distraught in a corner: the sergeant's wife knelt by the bed saying, 'There, there, my dear, there, there.' Mrs Homer had been far from Stephen's mind that morning but the moment he walked into the cabin he was as certain of what had happened as if she had told him: she had procured an abortion; Mrs Lamb knew it; the others did not, and between her fits of convulsive agony Mrs Homer's one concern was to get them out of the room.

'I must have light and air, two basins of hot water and several towels,' he said in an authoritative voice. 'Mrs Lamb will help me. There is no room for more.'

Having made a rapid inspection and dealt with the immediate problems he hurried down to the medicine-chest. On his way, far below, he met his assistant, and as there was no escape Higgins stood aside to let him pass; but Stephen took him by the elbow, led him under a grating so that some light fell on his face, and said, 'Mr Higgins, Mr Higgins, you will hang for this, if I do not save her. You are a mash wicked bungling ignorant murderous fool.' Higgins was not without bounce, confidence and resource when put to his shifts, but theme was such a contained reptilian ferocity in Stephen's pale eye that now he only bowed his head, making no sort of answer.

A little later in the empty sick-bay, one of the few places in the ship where it was possible to speak without being overheard, Stephen saw the gunner, who asked him what the trouble was - what was the nature of the disease?

'It is a female disorder,' said Stephen, 'and not uncommon; but I am afraid this time it is very bad. Our great hope is the resilience of youth - how old is Mrs Homer?'

'Nineteen.'

'Yet even so you should prepare your mind: she may overcome the fever, but she may not.'

'It is not along of me?' asked the gunner in a low voice. 'It is not along of my you know what?'

'No,' said Stephen. 'It has nothing to do with you.' He looked at Homer's dark, savage face: 'Is there attachment there?' he wondered. 'Affection? Any kind of tenderness? Or only pride and concern for property?' He could not be sure; but early the next morning, when he had to tell the gunner that his wife had made no improvement at all, he had the feeling that the man's chief emotion, now that the first shock and dismay were over, was anger - anger against the world in general and anger against her too, for being ill. It did not surprise him very much: in the course of his professional career by land he had seen many and many a husband, and even some lovers, angry at a woman's sickness, impatient, full of blame: quite devoid of pity, and angry that it should be expected of them.

It was a slow dawn, with showers drifting across the sea from the north-east; and as the light grew and the veil of rain in the south-west parted the lookout bawled, 'On deck, there. Sail on the starboard bow.'

Part of the cry reached Jack in the cabin as he was raising his first cup of coffee. He clapped it back on to the table, spilling half, and ran on deck. 'Masthead,' he called. 'Where away?'

'Can't make out nothing now, sir,' said the masthead. 'She was maybe a point on the starboard bow, hull up. Close-hauled on the larboard tack, I believe.'

'Put it on, sir,' cried Killick angrily, hurrying after him and holding out a watchcoat with a hood, a Magellan jacket. 'Put it on. Which I run it up a-purpose, ain't I? Labouring all the bleeding night, stitch, stitch, snip, snip,' - this in a discontented mutter.

'Thankee Killick,' said Jack absently, drawing the hood over his bare head. Then loud and clear, 'Hands to make sail. Topgallants and weather studdingsails.'

No more was needed. At the word the Surprise's topmen raced aloft, the shrouds on either side black with men: a few cutting notes on the bosun's pipes and the sails flashed out - let fall, sheeted home, hoisted, trimmed and drawing with extraordinary rapidity. And as the Surprise leapt forward, her bow-wave rising fast, the lookout hailed again: the sail was there, but she had worn; she was now heading due south.