Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

The Ariel only paused long enough to hail a Deal pilot-boat, to set Mr Pellworm ashore: as he went over the side he said, 'Mark my words, sir, mark my words: it will come into the west yet, whatever Mr Grimmond may say; and when it does come, it will blow all the harder for the waiting." He moved three steps down the ladder and paused, his eyes just over the rail. 'Sick Earth convulsive groans from shore to shore, And Nature shuddering feels the horrid roar,' he said: his eyes took on a particularly knowing and significant look for a moment, and then vanished.

The quarterdeck frowned: Pellworm might be an old respected pilot, but this was coming it too high by half; this was taking a liberty with their Captain.

'Fill the maintopsail,' said Jack in a strong, displeased voice; and more privately to Stephen, 'I am glad we are shot of Mr Pellworm. He is an excellent pilot, but he prates too much. Poetry is not at all suitable on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war, particularly on such a subject: it might make the hands uneasy.'

It might also be right. There was perhaps something unpleasant in the smiling sky; and although the breeze seemed firmly settled in the north-east Jack was determined not to lose a minute of it but to run down-Channel with a press of sail until he could round Ushant with plenty of sea-room. He would not even stop long enough to take in fresh supplies from the bum-boats that came round the ship, observing in his decided manner 'that they were not here to blow out their kites with lobscouse, nor to choke their luffs with figgy-dowdy, but to convey the Catalan troops to Santandero without a moment's loss of time -dried peas would answer very well until they should reach Santandero,' and with a fresh breeze, a following tide, and a fine sense of urgency they stood south-west.

A fair wind right down the Channel was rare enough: often and often he had had to anchor for the tide, beat up tack upon tack in the narrow seas, winning a few miles only to be driven back again - weeks sometimes before he could get clear into the Atlantic; but now the familiar landmarks filed by in fine brisk succession: the South Foreland, Dungeness, Fairly, and Beachy gleaming through a wall of rain with solid blue-black cloud behind it; and then late in the evening there was the Wight clear on the starboard bow. Jack climbed into the mizentop with a telescope and before the green light vanished in the west he thought he caught the glint of his observatory dome at Ashgrove Cottage. He stared at it in a strange confusion of spirits, as though at another world, farther from him now than when he had been in the Antipodes.

The wind increased with the setting of the sun, and seeing that it would certainly come on to blow they struck topgallantmasts, reefed topsails and made all snug, even to the extent of rolling-tackles and puddening - storm-canvas had been the order of the day since Jutland - and they passed the Start as though they meant to fly out of the Channel without once changing course and reach the Spanish coast before the end of the week, a fitting crown to a most uncommon expedition.

Once again the dawn broke fair enough after a rainy night, though a heavy swell was setting from the southwest against the wind and tide, sending green water over the Ariel's bows, and they ran past the Eddystone,. with Rame Head and the homelike entrance to Plymouth plain beyond it, past the Dodman; and between the Dodman and the Lizard their luck failed them. Without any warning but three black squalls in quick succession the wind chopped about into the west, blowing right into their teeth and bringing very heavy rain. 'We were so nearly clear,' said Jack. 'Another hour and I should have stood south: such a run it would have been! However, whining will do no good, and at least we have a couple of hundred miles under our lee.' He tied his sou'wester firmly under his chin, advised Stephen to make all fast, and returned to the streaming deck.

'What is amiss?' asked Jagiello.

'It is another of these vile headlands,' said Stephen. 'This one is called Ushant, and we must get round it, we must weather it, to clear the Channel and reach the Biscay shore.'

'There are too many of these headlands at sea,' said Jagiello. 'Give me a horse, any day.'

Jack knew the Ariel by now, he knew her well, a fine, living, responsive little creature; and this was the kind of sailing he liked, driving a stout, well-found ship in a hearty blow, taking advantage of every lull, every kind run of the sea or tide to cling to his windward gain or increase it: he had capable officers, an adequate crew, a well-tempered instrument; and in any case he was glad to have no room for any other kind of thought at this juncture. The sight of home had troubled his mind extremely - recollections of Amanda Smith, legal complications, self-reproach, the potential ruin of his heart, the probable shipwreck of his fortune, all these things pell-mell in a confusion of distress. He kept the Ariel under close-reefed topsails, not to outrun the poor transports, with their load of misery - their hundreds of seasick soldiers below - and their ungainly build, but he could have carried more. Although the little black stormy petrels fluttered on either hand, the breeze was still something short of a fresh gale, and in spite of the heavy seas on the larboard bow he was convinced that he was gaining half a point. The only trouble was the impenetrable thickness of the weather: there would not be the least possibility of an observation today or tonight, nor in all likelihood for some time to come.

Before darkness they passed a ship of the line and two frigates on the opposite tack, on their way to the Brest blockade: Achilles, Euterpe, Boadicea. They exchanged numbers, private signals, and greetings, and Jack looked long and intently after them, particularly the Boadicea; he had commanded her in the Indian Ocean and he retained a strong affection for the broad-beamed, comfortable ship, slow perhaps, but so reliable once one knew her ways. Standing on a carronade-slide, his arms round a stay, the heavy rain and the flying water beating on his back, he watched her tearing along, all possible canvas abroad to keep up with the swift-sailing Achilles. Mitchell had her now: he had added iron stern davits and a quarterdeck carronade on each side, but he had hardly altered her paintwork at all, the true Nelson chequer; and she still had that odd, fetching, slightly hesitant second lift before she shouldered a heavy sea down her side. 'I shall not crack on like that, however,' he reflected. 'Festino lento does it, as Stephen would say.' And 'God help the inshore squadron on a night like this,' he added, remembering his own time off the Black Rocks and Camaret, the iron-bound coast of Brittany.

They were blotted out by another squall, coming more from the south this time; and then it was night, a black night full of rain and shattered salt-water that showed bright as it swept over the binnacle lights and the stern-lanterns, the only light in the darkness, a darkness that enveloped the whole ship as she stretched close-hauled for the Lizard over a sea visible only as it broke white over the bows.

The routine of the ship carried on, of course: dim figures relieved the watch, relieved the wheel, relieved the lookouts, made their way groping along the manlines to strike the bell, heaved the log and recorded the result, huddled carefully over the folding boards in the companion-way. After an hour, when he judged he might have the Lizard fine on the starboard bow five miles away, he made the night-signal that told the transports to wear in succession, put the ship about, and hauled his wind on the other tack. When he had seen them all round in good order, the string of lights heading southward on the long leg that might with luck carry them round Ushant into the Bight of Biscay, he went below. Young Fenton had the deck, no phoenix perhaps, but a steady, reliable officer; and in any case the situation called for no extraordinary exertions, no extraordinary talents; there was nothing unusual about a westerly gale in the mouth of the Channel, however wet.