Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

'Alas, my poor friend, not only is it set to Carlscrona time, but it loses a minute or so a day; and from what you tell me, that would represent a span of some twenty miles. I am afraid we must imitate the ancients and hug the shore, creeping from promontory to promontory.'

'I very much doubt the ancients did anything of the kind. Can you imagine anyone in his wits coming within sight of a lee-shore? No, no: blue-water sailing for me; and after all, the old 'uns found their way to the New World and back again with no more than lead, latitude and lookout. Even so, a watch true to a minute would be useful in case of dirty weather; I shall signal Juno and set it by their reckoning.' He cocked his ear to the sound of Colonel d'Ullastret singing 'Ron cop de falc.' as he shaved in preparation for his first appearance, a harsh, disagreeable voice, not unlike Stephen's, and went on. 'Though now I come to think on it, I believe I shall go across. Maudsley owes me a mutton-chop.'

'The Colonel would be disappointed not to see you at dinner. Besides, the sea is rough, the day inclement.'

'Nelson once said that love of his country served him for a greatcoat. It is my clear duty to pull across whatever the weather and take an accurate reading. You will make my excuses: as an officer, the Colonel will certainly understand. Besides, you can invite Jagiello - Jagiello will entertain him. He speaks French quite as well as I do. Yes, that is the very thing: you must ask Jagiello to dinner.'

Captain Aubrey had a rough trip of it on his, way to the Juno: he had an even rougher, wetter, return, and although he was buoyed up with Maudsley's capital dinner there were times when he and the coxswain and every man in the boat-thought he had misjudged it - that the ugly short cross-seas cut up by the strengthening wind as it backed must swamp them. As it was the launch was very near stove alongside, and when Jack came aboard in his dripping borrowed boat-cloak he caught the pilot's eye fixed upon him with a look of triumph.

'Well, Mr Pellworm,' he said, 'here is your blow at last; but at least I hope it is come late enough to let us weather the Skaw.'

'I hope so too, sir, I am sure,' said Pellworm, obviously convinced that they should do nothing of the kind. 'But it is backing uncommon fast, and once it comes full north, farewell, adieu.'

'That bloody-minded old Pellworm,' said Jack, as he changed into what few dry garments he possessed. 'He would rather we beat to and fro for a week trying to get out of the Sleeve, and then after all having to stretch away to lie in Kungsbacka to wait for a fair wind, rather than have his prediction fail. He will bring us bad luck. Mingus,' he called to the steward, 'take these along to the galley to dry, and take care of the lace as you value your hide. Stephen, I am going to sleep until the setting of the watch: we have a heavy night ahead of us. Where is the Colonel?'

'He is already gone to bed. He finds himself incommoded by the motion: leaves his compliments and excuses, however.'

A heavy night they had, but Stephen and Jagiello knew little of it, apart from thumps, hoarse nautical cries, pipings, the muted thunder of feet as the watch below was turned up to make sail or take it in, and the wild swinging of the lantern that lit their little green-topped card-table. They had tacitly abandoned chess and taken to piquet: Stephen had always been lucky at cards; Jagiello was quite disastrously and uniformly unfortunate. By three bells in the middle watch he had lost all his money, and since they had agreed to play only for visible coin the game necessarily came to an end. He looked wistfully at his entire fortune lying there on Stephen's side - seventeen shillings and fourpence, mostly in very small change - but after a moment his native cheerfulness returned and he declared that the moment they set foot on land he should cash one of his letters of credit and beg for his revenge. 'That will be next week, I suppose?' he said.

'Perhaps you may be too sanguine,' said Stephen, cutting the ace of spades and then immediately after the ace of hearts. 'From what I am told by Mr Pellworm, an old experienced Baltic pilot, it is more likely to be next year."

'But I have heard of the passage made in four days - we came very quickly - and the wind is now blowing towards England. Mr Pellworm is trying to make our meat creep: he told me the same thing.'

'Certainly there is a very vicious tendency in Mr Pellworm and in many other mariners to terrify the landsman; and to be sure the wind blows from the north-east. But you are to consider that we are not yet out of the Sleeve; we have yet to weather the Skaw, and the wind is coming more northward still.'

'Oh, indeed,' said Jagiello, looking perfectly blank.

'As a cavalry officer,' said Stephen, 'you have perhaps not fully appreciated the importance, the primordial importance of the breeze in maritime affairs. Even I was not wholly imbued with it until I had been many years at sea. Let us suppose that this three-shilling piece represents the Skaw, that notorious headland, innocent in appearance but death to ships,' he said, placing a coin on the left-hand side of the table. 'And this,' placing another on the right, 'Gothenburg, on the Swedish main, with some ten leagues between them. And here, with the island of Lesso somewhat behind us, or abaft, as we say, is the convoy, represented by these pennies and ha'pence. Now you must know that a ship's head can be usefully pointed no nearer the wind than six points of the compass, or sixty-seven and a half degrees; and although she may appear to be travelling that close to the origin of the breeze, in fact her true course is by no means the same, for there is also a lateral motion, execrated by the seamen, known as leeway. This depends on the impetuosity of the billows and a host of other factors, but I believe I may say that in the present conditions it must amount to two points. That is to say, we are really moving at right angles to the wind."

'Then all is well,' cried Jagiello, 'because the wind being in the north-east we clear the Skaw.'

'With all my heart,' said Stephen, 'but if it moves to the north, if it moves the four points between north-east and north, then the other arm of the angle inevitably moves a corresponding distance south; and you will readily perceive that the arm strikes the headland as soon as it has passed through fifteen degrees, or considerably less than the four points of which I speak. Furthermore, Mr Jagiello, furthermore, even if we do creep round the Skaw, Mr Pellworm promises us the wind is likely to shift even west of north, perhaps even into the dreaded west itself, growing more violent as it does so; and once the breeze rises to a gale, the leeway to which I referred increases, so that when topsails are obliged to be taken in, or handed, we reckon at least four points. So that once we are round the Skaw we have Jammer Bay under our lee, with the wind blowing directly upon it: we no longer travel at right angles to the wind but at some hundred and twenty degrees from it, gradually slanting towards the hostile coast and its mortal breakers. We may throw out anchors; but there is little confidence to be placed in anchors during a gale of wind. They drag; the ship drives; and in the hours that follow we have ample time to deplore our ineluctable fate, regretting, no doubt, lost opportunities of pleasure, even of reform. Such, Mr Jagiello, are what a former shipmate of mine called the impervious horrors of a leeward shore. Small wonder that Captain Aubrey regards the coast as being far too near at twenty miles away; small wonder that Mr Pellworm, who has seen the ships of a numerous convoy together with two great men-of-war miserably shattered along the reefs of Jammer Bay, should wish to bear up, or down, or away, and run for Kungsbacka.'