Patrick O'Brian - The Ionian mission

'I am sure what you say is profoundly true,' said Martin, 'and I bow to your experience - I shall nourish no illusions. And yet, sir, you have seen the great albatross, the southern petrels, the penguins in their interesting diversity, sea-elephants, the cassowary of the far Spice Islands, the emu scouring the sultry plain, the blue-eyed shag. You have beheld Leviathan!'

'I have also seen the three-toed sloth,' said Dr Maturin.

'Sail ho,' called the lookout at the foremasthead. 'On deck, there, four sails of ships, six sail, a squadron, fine on the larboard bow.'

'That will be Sir John Thornton's fleet,' said Stephen. 'Presently we must make ourselves trim: perhaps we might call the ship's barber.'

Captain Aubrey, as trim as his newly-brushed best uniform could make him, the Nile medal in his buttonhole, the regulation sword at his side (Admiral Thornton was a stickler for etiquette) went down the Worcester's side with the full naval ceremony, preceded by a midshipman with several packets under his arm. He was grave and silent as the barge pulled along the broad expanse of sea between the two ranges of towering line-of-battle ships stretching ahead and astern of the Ocean, each exactly in station, two cable lengths apart. Although this was only a parenthesis in his career, a routine turn on the everlasting Toulon blockade, with little likelihood of action, there was always the sea to cope with, the sudden savage winds of the Gulf of Lions; and the unexpected was always at hand. Admiral Thornton was himself an outstanding seaman; he required a very high degree of competence in his captains; he never hesitated to sacrifice individuals when he thought the good of the service was at issue- many an officer had he set on the beach for ever - and although Jack could hardly hope to distinguish himself during this parenthesis it was quite possible that he might take a fall, particularly as Admiral Harte, the second in command, did not love him. His thoughts were more sombre, his face far less cheerful than usual. After the first few very active weeks of getting the Worcester into shape, weeks in which he had brought her gunnery to a moderately high standard of efficiency, the ship had settled into the steady naval way of life, a happy ship upon the whole; and since he had an excellent first lieutenant in Tom Pullings he had had plenty of time to worry about his affairs at home, his horribly involved and dangerous legal affairs. He had retained little Latin from his brief, remote, and largely ineffectual days at school, but one tag still ran through his head and the substance of it was that no ship could outrun care. The Worcester had run some two thousand miles as fast as he could drive her, yet care still sat there, dispelled only by the great-gun exercise and his evenings with Stephen, Scarlatti, old Bach and Mozart.

Bonden brought the barge kissing alongside the flagship. Jack was piped aboard with even greater ceremony, bosun's calls howling, Marines presenting arms with a fine simultaneous clash; he saluted the quarterdeck, observed that the Admiral was not there, saluted the Captain of the Fleet, shook hands with the captain of the Ocean, took the packets from his midshipman, and turned to a man in black, the Admiral's secretary, who led him below.

The Admiral looked up from the innumerable papers on his broad desk, said 'Sit down, Aubrey. Forgive me for a moment,' and went on writing. His pen squeaked. Jack sat there gravely, as well he might, for the man in front of him, brilliantly lit by the Mediterranean sun coming in through the stern-window, was a pale bald bloated ghost of the Admiral Thornton he had known, a man without any glorious fleet-action to his name but with a great reputation as a fighting captain and a greater one as an organizer and a disciplinarian, a man with a personality as strong as St Vincent's and not unlike him, except that he loathed flogging and paid much attention to religious observance - and that he was happily married. Jack had served under him, and although he had known many admirals since those days he still found him as formidable as ever, shockingly aged and sick though he was. Jack sat there, considering the passage of time and its mutilations; he stared, hardly aware of what he was seeing, at the Admiral's pale bald head with a few long streaks of grey hair on either side until an old, old pugdog, suddenly waking, set up a furious little din, waddled straight at his chair and bit him in the leg, if so nearly toothless a nip could be called a bite.

'Quiet, Tabby, quiet," said the Admiral, scratching on.

The pug retreated, snorting and growling, rolling her eyes and defying Jack from her cushion under the desk. The Admiral signed his letter, put down his pen and took off his spectacles: he made as if to rise, but sank back. Jack sprang to his feet and the Admiral stretched out his hand over the papers, looking up at him without much interest. 'Well, Aubrey,' he said, 'welcome to the Mediterranean. You have made a fairly good passage, considering the levanter. I am glad they sent me a real seaman this time: some of the people they wish on us are sad loobies. And I am glad to see you managed to persuade them to let you have sensible masts. Taunt, heavy-sparred ships, above all if they are wall-sided, will never do for winter service here. Tell me, how do you find the Worcester?'

'I have her statement of condition here, sir,' said Jack, taking one of his packets. 'But perhaps first you will allow me to deliver this: when I did myself the honour of waiting upon her before we sailed I promised Lady Thornton that it should be the first I gave you.'

'Bless me, letters from home,' cried the Admiral, and his dull, glaucous eyes took on their old life and gleam. 'And a couple from my girls, too. This is an epocha - I have not heard from them since Excellent came in. Bless me. I take this very kindly in you, Aubrey, upon my word I do.' This time he rose from his chair, heaving his thick body up on his stick-like legs to shake Jack's hand again; and as he did so he noticed the torn silk stocking, the little spot of blood. 'Has she bit you?' he cried. 'Oh, I am so sorry. Tabby, you vile cur, for shame,' he said, bending to cuff the pug: she snapped at him without the least hesitation, never stirring from her cushion. 'She grows fractious in her old age,' said the Admiral. 'Like her master, I am afraid. And she pines for a run on shore. Do you know, Aubrey, it is thirteen months since I let go an anchor?'

When the Admiral had leafed through the several covers and had glanced at his official correspondence to see whether there were any particularly urgent matters, they returned to the Worcester and Jack's wound. The ship did not detain them long; they both knew her and most of the other Forty Thieves, and Jack was aware that the Admiral longed to be left alone with his letters. But Thornton repeatedly expressed his concern about the wound and the torn stocking: 'At least I can assure you that Tabitha ain't mad,' he said; 'Only wanting in wits and discrimination. If she had been mad there would scarcely be a flag-officer left in the squadron, since she has nipped Admiral Harte, Admiral Mitchell, and the Captain of the Fleet again and again. Particularly Harte. And not one of them has fallen into convulsions that I know of. But she is fractious, as I say, like her master. A good set-to with the French would set us both up - make us young again, and let us go home at last.'

'Is there any likelihood of their coming out, sir?'

'Maybe there is. Maybe. Not immediately, of course, with this southern air and a steady glass; but the inshore squadron has reported a good deal of activity these last weeks. Lord, how I hope they make a dash for it,' cried the Admiral, clasping his hands.

'God send they do, sir,' said Jack, standing up. 'God send they do.'

'Amen to that,' said the Admiral, and rising with the roll of the ship he walked to the door with Jack, observing as they parted, 'We are to have a court-martial tomorrow, I am afraid. You will attend, of course. There is one particularly ugly case that I do not choose to leave over for Malta, and we will deal with the others at the same time. I wish it were done with. Oh, and I believe you have a Dr Maturin aboard. I should like to see him at noon, and so would the Physician of the Fleet.'