Patrick O'Brian - The Ionian mission

'This is my heart's delight,' said Mustapha, waving the canvas away; and to his astonishment Jack beheld a thirty-six-pounder, an unheard-of, preposterous weapon for a frigate - even a first-rate line-of-battle ship carried no more than thirty-two pounders and those only on the lowest tier - and so massive that it dwarfed its neighbours. And over against it, on the larboard side, there was its fellow, its necessary counterpoise.

'I have never seen such a beautiful gun,' cried Jack, examining the dolphins that twined round the King of Portugal's arms and the well-worn touch-hole. 'But do you indeed find they answer the weight and the confusion?' he asked, looking keenly at the reinforced deck and side and the triple ringbolts; and until they reached the cabin they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the arrangement, the inconvenience of different calibres on the same deck, the extra weight so high in the ship and its effect on her roll in heavy weather, as opposed to the crippling effect of thirty-six pound shot hitting the enemy at a distance.

In the cabin itself, a singularly gorgeous room hung with crimson damask, the appearance of coffee broke the thread, and in any case it was evident that Jack was about to leave: he could not be persuaded to stay any longer, nor to visit the nearby port of Karia, because he had a rendezvous with his consort the Dryad. This being established Mustapha went over his plan of attack again, with a reasonably convincing account of the forces at his disposal, and once again he stated his opinion of Sciahan Bey and Ismail.

Sciahan's chief crime, apart from greed and avarice, was age, cold-blooded, incompetent age, and Jack had the impression that although Mustapha would certainly expel Sciahan from Kutali if he could, perhaps killing him in the process, he did not really dislike him. With Ismail it was quite a different matter: here there were detailed, persuasive charges of faithlessness, hypocrisy and disloyalty - Mustapha's voice grew even stronger, his eye more terrible: he called upon God to curse his children's children if ever he allowed that vile unmanly traitor to get the better of him.

Jack had seen some passionate men, but none who seemed to swell so much, nor whose great clenched fist trembled so with rage, none whose eyes became more suffused with red. Clearly there was something very much more than competition for the disputed town between Mustapha and Ismail: though on the other hand there was no doubt that Mustapha was also extremely eager to possess Kutali.

The Capitan-Bey boomed organ-toned, and in the barge alongside Bonden said, 'How their skipper does carry on, to be sure: like a bull in a barn.'

At this the portlid of the starboard thirty-six-pounder opened and a hairy, turbanned face peered out. 'Well, you'll know me again, mate,' observed Bonden, having been stared at for a full unwinking minute.

'Barret Bonden,' said the hairy face, 'you don't remember me.'

'I can't say as how I do, mate, behind all them whiskers.'

'Ezekiel Edwards, quarter-gunner in Isis when you was captain of the foretop. Zeke Edwards: ran when we was off of Tiberoon.'

'Zeke Edwards,' said Bonden, nodding his head. 'Yes.' Then, 'What are you doing in this barky? Was you took? Are you a prisoner?'

'No. Which I belong to her. Gunner's mate.'

Bonden considered him for a moment, and said, 'So you turned Turk, and grew a full set, and clapped a pudding-cloth round your head.'

'That's right, mate. Being I never was brought up religious; and being I was circumcised already, any gate.'

The other bargemen had been gazing steadily at Edwards with their mouths open; they now closed them and stared with wooden disapproval out to sea: but he had spoken with such an awkward, urgent, pleading tone, as though longing beyond expression to hear and utter Christian sounds, that Bonden replied. Rather severely he asked what Edwards was doing with that thirty-six-pounder - what a thirty-six-pounder was doing in a frigate, for Christ's sake, a long thirty-six-pounder?

This released a flood of words, a stumbling confidential rush with scraps of Greek and Turkish and lingua franca mixed with the burring West Country English, all delivered into Bonden's disapproving, half-averted ear. The guns were from Corfu, from the French general in Corfu; and he had let the skipper have them because why? Because they was Portuguese and did not take the French thirty-six-pound ball, nor any other bloody ball now made, that was why. But the Capitan-Bey did not care for that: he had marble round-shot made by the Greeks in the island of Paros, smooth as glass. The trouble was, they often cracked if not stowed very careful; and then they cost a mint of money. You could not blaze away with half a dozen rounds just to keep your hand in - you could not fling marble balls about, not marble balls at nineteen piastres a piece.

'Marble balls,' said Bonden, obscurely feeling some reflection upon the Surprise and her plain iron round-shot. 'Marble balls my arse.'

'I never seen such a filthy mud-scow as this here in all my life,' remarked bow-oar, spitting to leeward. 'Don't they never wash down the heads?'

Edwards instantly grasped the implication and he cried out very humbly that he had not meant to top it the nob nor to come it the heavy; he did not go for to make them believe the shot-locker was crammed with marble balls -no, no, there was not but five for the starboard gun and four for t'other, one of them chipped. More he could not say, for now cymbals clashed, shrill drums beat and conchs brayed loud as Captain Aubrey made his farewells and stepped down into the barge with Professor Graham, sitting thoughtful and silent as they were rowed back in the twilight.

Thoughtful and silent again on this quarterdeck at dawn, with Marga almost vanishing on the starboard quarter: he levelled his telescope, took a last look at the rock-built citadel, the great Venetian mole, and resumed his pacing. Silent: partly because it had long been his habit to go up and down the windward side of whatever vessel he commanded as long as he could without disturbing the ship's routine, and partly because neither of his advisers was awake, they having discussed Mustapha and Ismail well into the middle watch. Thoughtful, because although Mustapha was a fine fellow in some ways, he was not likely to show much zeal in turning the French out of Marga if he was on such friendly terms with General Donzclot in Corfu: Bondcn's report had reached him through Killick with his first cup of coffee, and then Bonden had confirmed it himself.

As he turned his eye caught the flash of a sail in the offing, far beyond the Dryad: she had joined at nightfall and she was now keeping her station abreast of the Surprise, they being spread out in the faint hope of snapping up some vessel bound for the French in Corfu, or better still one from the French in Corfu to their friends in Marga. Automatically he pointed his telescope, but realizing that he could not possibly spare the time to chase anything at such a distance - it was only a little trabaccolo in any case - he shifted his gaze to the Dryad and found himself looking straight at Babbington, who was leaning on the quarter-rail with a very pretty young woman in a sort of pink, lacy garment. He was showing her something over the side, and they were both laughing very cheerfully.

Jack clapped his glass to. He remembered that Babbington, coming aboard to report, had muttered something about giving a lift to a respectable Italian matron, an officer's widow, from Cephalonia to Santa Maura - being compelled to keep her aboard, the wind not serving for Santa Maura and he being so unwilling to delay Captain Aubrey at the rendezvous. A matron could of course be no more than twenty and a widow could perfectly well be cheerful: but it would not do - it really would not do.