Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

'Mr Grimmond," he said, 'lay me under the Mirza's lee,' the Mirza being the senior troop-carrier. Then, with the Ariel's maintopsail backed, he took a speaking-trumpet and roared through the wind, 'Mr Smithson, rendezvous in the Bordeaux stream - if I am not there report to the senior officer Santandero - go easy - carry nothing away - no royals, no kites.'

'Never you fear for us, sir,' called Smithson, waving his capable right hand. 'Good luck to you.'

The transports knew perfectly well what was afoot, and they gave the Ariel a hearty cheer as she filled and passed down the line.

'Course south-east by east a half east,' said Jack with the French ship firm in his glass. 'Shake out the foretopsail reef.' Through the murk and the flying spray he caught the movement as the chase braced up, bringing the wind before the beam as he had expected, veering southward from the danger, perhaps the very serious danger, in the north-east. But even so, it would be a near-run thing, he reflected as he stared at the white sails under the low grey sky: the chase must be making nine or even ten knots, and if he failed to cross her forefoot - if he merely fetched her wake - his intervention, brief as it must necessarily be, would prove of little use. Little use, but quite as dangerous.

'Mr Meares,' he said, 'pray be so good as to ask Jason for her position, and repeat it to the transports.'

A long pause, caused partly by the difficulty of seeing flags through five miles of haze and rain in a thin grey light and partly by hesitancy aboard the Jason.

'No observation three days,' said Meares at last. 'Estimate 49�27'N. 7�10'W. Chronometer five hours twenty-eight minutes past noon.'

As he checked the difference between Stephen's watch and the Jason's - a pretty wide variation - Jack smiled again: Middleton was no scientific sailor - board 'em in the smoke was more his line - but he or his master could not be very far out in the longitude, and that meant the Frenchman had no possibility of fetching La Rochelle with this wind. It was Brest or Lorient for him, unless he chose to run for Cherbourg, through a Channel filled with English squadrons.

A fine ship, he thought, gazing over the ocean; she was as close-hauled as she could be, yet she was throwing an enormous bow-wave half down her side. The Ariel would have to spread more canvas if she were to come up with any time and space for manoeuvre; and a ship of the Ariel's size needed plenty of both if she wore to do anything at all to a seventy-four. 'Pass the word for the bosun,' he said; and when the dripping bosun came plunging aft from the forecastle, 'Mr Graves, let us get light hawsers to the mastheads as briskly as we can.'

'Hawsers to the mastheads, sir?' cried the bosun, amazed.

'Yes, Mr Graves,' said Jack pleasantly, ducking under the perfect deluge of sea-water that came over the weather-rail. 'I should like to see them all set up before the last dog-watch. I doubt we shall beat to divisions today.'

The bosun smiled, as in duty bound. He said, 'Aye aye, sir. Light hawsers to the mastheads it is,' in a low, wondering tone, and padded off. 'Mr Graves,' called Jack after him, 'be sure to let them take the wet before you set them up taut: we must not wring the masts.'

It was an operation he had used with much success: the great extra strength of the hawsers would allow him to set topgallantsails without the masts complaining or infinitely worse carrying away; and although it could not be done in a crank ship because of the increased tophamper, the Ariel was by no means crank, but admirably stiff. The greater thrust, the greater speed had kept him alive before this, particularly when he was flying before a wicked Dutchman in the high southern latitudes, and obviously it would answer the other way about: he wondered the practice was not more generally known.

The hawsers were not to the mastheads before the last dog-watch, nor anything like it. Squall after squall of very heavy rain swept down on the sloop, rain so thick that fresh water gushed from the lee scuppers and the hands could hardly tell what they were at, while at the same time the turning gusts within the squalls knocked her about most brutally, taking her aback three times, and making it impossible to keep her steady on her course. The French ship and the Jason vanished entirely for the best part of an hour.

'Should I feel better if I were to vomit?' asked Jagiello.

'I doubt it,' said Stephen. 'It has done nothing for the Colonel.'

They pursued and the pursuer were still there, in their expected positions, when the last squall passed away into the dark north-east, blotting out the horizon to leeward but leaving the sea clear to starboard. The Frenchman was still reaching as far south as ever he could, veering from the imaginary danger - he had not yet discovered the cheat - but he had set a forestaysail, he had let out his remaining reefs, and he had gained perceptibly on the Jason. On the other hand his course and the Ariel's were converging, although the sloop kept the wind a whole point free for greater speed; the chase was nearer by half a mile, and clearer by far.

'She is the Meduse,' said Hyde.

'Then let us hope we may trim her locks, with Jason's help,' said Jack at once, and he laughed aloud. His spirits were at a fine tearing pitch; he felt extremely well; even if it had been remembered, nothing on land had the least importance: yet beneath the glow of well-being his mind continually worked upon the changing factors, upon the three visible moving points of the triangle and the unseen variables that would affect them. And beneath the eagerness there was a clear-headed realization of the danger of his present course: although he intended no more than a hit-and-run delaying action, it meant bringing his stumpy carronades well within the reach of the Frenchman's far-reaching long guns, with a broadside of at least 840 pounds as opposed to his 265. In moderate weather, with her lower tier of gunports open, the Meduse would certainly sink the Ariel at a mile, destroying her before she could open an effectual fire: even in these circumstances there was a fair possibility that none of these cheerful young men around him would live until tomorrow. Everything depended upon speed.

'Hawsers to the mastheads, sir,' said the bosun.

'Very good, Mr Graves,' said Jack. 'You have done very well.' A rapid survey, and back to the quarterdeck. 'Hands to make sail,' he called. 'Away aloft. Lay out: let fall.' And raising his voice to carry half a mile, wind or no wind, 'Foretopgallant halliards, there. Handsomely now, handsomely. A fathom. And a fathom. Up she rises: tally and belay.'

One after another the sails rose slowly up on their yards, each ballooning wildly to leeward at first and each gradually brought to a fine taut curve; smoothly and evenly the full strain of the far greater thrust came to the powerful hawsers; and as each sail filled the Ariel took on a greater heel, so that with the third her deck was at the slope of a moderately high-pitched roof, while her larboard cathead and much of her lee rail vanished under a smother of white foam.

Jack hooked himself on to a weather backstay and reached aft for the hawser that trebled its power - taut, but not iron taut: nowhere near its breaking-strain. 'Mr Hyde,' he said, smiling at his lieutenant's anxious face, 'Let us try the log: we may be making close on eleven knots.'

'Eleven knots and two fathoms, sir,' came the reply, delivered by a delighted midshipman, his red face shining as he scrambled up the slope from the leeward side.

Eleven knots was very well, but the Meduse was a new ship, a beautiful sailer like so many of the Frenchmen, and well handled; and once she brought the wind a point free she would move even faster. He would probably cross her path by sunset at the present rate, but he would be far happier with something more, with the time in hand to lie on her bow, cross her stem and wear, hitting her twice before he ran. 'I believe we may venture upon a maintopmast staysail,' he said.