Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

'Four bells, the vile brute-beasts,' said Stephen, ramming the wax still further home. But five bells he never heard. He was deep, deep down; and his next impression was one of extreme, general, incoherent violence - Jack shaking him, pulling him bodily out of his cot, shouting 'Fire, fire, the ship's on fire. Get up on deck.'

He could see almost nothing for the smoke, but snatching up a book and writing-case he followed Jack's fleeting lantern along the deserted orlop to the forehatch. The whole deck was aglow with a rosy light reflected from the smoke and the sails, and an occasional tongue of flame could be seen above the main hatchway. Hoses were playing, half-naked men heaving strongly at the pumps. He stood there for a moment in his shirt, grasping the situation; then he turned to dart down to his cabin, but the scorching smoke drove him back directly, and as he emerged so a fountain of brilliant flame shot up from the cabin skylight. The main and mizen topsails and all their tarred rigging took fire at once: blazing pieces fell on the deck, starting other fires - coils of rope, wood tinder-dry all flared with an extraordinary speed and brilliance - and now there was a vast omnipresent roar as the main fire took an unconquerable hold.

The men started from the pumps and ran to the side, all looking at Captain Yorke. 'Starboard watch away,' he cried. 'Easy, easy, there. Leopards to the blue cutter.'

There was a rush for the bows, where the boats had been hauled alongside: not an undisciplined panic-stricken rush, but violent enough for Stephen to be thrown down and trampled upon. He found himself picked up, heard Bonden's strong voice cry 'Make a lane, there', and there was Babbington, grasping his legs and guiding him into the boat.

'Pull clear ahead,' shouted Yorke, and a moment later, 'Larboard watch away.'

Now the flames roared higher still. There was some confusion, men throwing themselves into the water, shouts of 'Come on, sir, come on'. But in the glare Yorke, Warner and the gunner could be seen racing about the deck, firing the guns so that they should not go off at random as the heat reached them, perhaps hitting the boats. The last three guns all together, and Yorke came down the side, the last man off the ship. 'Give way,' he called, and his gig shot forward, passed through the rest, and led the way, pulling very fast. Presently they rested on their oars and gazed back at their ship: they gazed and gazed, with never a word, and in half an hour she blew up, a vast crimson lasting flash that grew with enormous speed, covering the sky, followed by a total darkness and the sound of timbers, masts, spars plunging from the darkness into the empty sea.

CHAPTER THREE

The blue cutter was eighteen feet long, and with thirteen men in the boat it was uncomfortably crowded, dangerously low in the water. They were silent and for the most part motionless, squeezed into what little shade they could find - precious little, under the high tropical sun, but more now that it was fast declining from its height, well down the western sky ahead. A sensible relief, for the blaze directly overhead at noon might have been called intolerable but for the fact that they had borne it. They had a good deal to bear, apart from the heat and the overcrowding: fear, hunger, thirst, and sunburn, and of these sunburn was the most immediate.

Their shirts now formed the small shoulder-of-mutton sail that was to carry them across the ocean to Brazil, and although their faces and forearms were tanned beyond the reach of any sun their backs were not: those with pigtails had unplaited them and spread the long hair as some kind of a shield, but that was not much use against such a blaze and their backs were fiery red or purple, cracked and peeling or quite raw; for although the cutter was properly fitted with its oars, stretchers, mast and cordage, its sails had formed part of the bosun's perquisites at the Cape, the loss being disguised by a small piece of canvas stuffed with junk. There were a few jackets in the boat, and these were passed, wetted, to those that took their places on the sunward side, turn and turn about at each hypothetical bell. As for fear, it had always been present from the moment it replaced their intense relief at escaping from the burning ship; and it had increased during the blow that separated the boats the very night La Fl�e took fire - a series of squalls that cut up such a sea that they all sat on the weather gunwale to keep the waves out with their close-pressed backs, bailing furiously the while, one bailer and a couple of hats between them. After that fear had dropped to something more like a steady anxiety, tempered with confidence: Captain Aubrey had stated that he knew where they were and that he would take them to San Salvador in Brazil; and if any man could pull them through it was he. Yet it had revived these last few days, with the biscuit and the water dwindling so, and never a fish, never a turtle on the vast expanse of deep blue sea. Even Captain Aubrey could not bring rain out of this implacably pure sky, nor increase the small parcel of biscuit that lay by him as he sat in the stern-sheets, steering the cutter westwards. Beneath him, carefully wedged and covered, stood the mess-kid with the few remaining pints of water. He would serve out a third of a mug at sunset, together with the third part of a biscuit; the Doctor would add a certain quantity of sea-water; and that would be all, the kid quite empty. There might be dew to lick from the mast and gunwales and to suck from the sail - it happened sometimes - but that would not keep them going long, any more than the urine they had been drinking this last week. Since Wednesday the Doctor had been pointing out birds that he said were never seen more than a few hundred miles from land, and they had all felt encouraged; but with these light variable airs a few hundred miles might mean another week, and they no longer had the strength to pull for any length of time if the breeze failed them: they had chewed all the goodness out of their leather belts or shoes, and when the biscuit was gone, all was gone. No one complained, but each knew very well that he could not last a great while now; and though hope was not gone, nor nearly gone, the anxiety weighed very heavy in the boat.

'Change over,' said the Captain in a hoarse croak. The jackets were wetted and passed to the men who were to take their place in the bows, and there was a general post. Yet even with this moving around the main order did not vary: the Captain sat in the stern-sheets, the two lieutenants by him, the midshipmen further forward, then the Leopards, and then the three Flitches they had picked up - men who had flung themselves over the side in the confusion and had lost their own boats. Each man sat by his belongings, such as they were: sometimes they were the effect of chance, of what happened to be at hand in the last moment, but sometimes they seemed to show what each man had valued most. Jack Aubrey had his chronometer beside him, next to the biscuit, the heavy cavalry sabre he had used for many years, and a pair of pistols. He had come off better than most, since Killick, having a few minutes longer warning, had also caught up a sheaf of the Captain's papers, his best telescope, and half a dozen of his best frilled shirts, fresh from the ironing-board; but the shirts were now part of the sail's after-leach. Babbington had preserved his commission; Byron the official journals and certificates he would need if his acting-rank were to be confirmed, and a sextant. One midshipman still had his dirk, and the two others their silver spoons. Several of the foremast-hands had saved their ditty-bags, often beautifully embroidered, their hussifs, and of course their knives. Dr Maturin's locked writing-case stood on his diary, and his new wig on that: he himself could not be seen, except for his fingers clinging to the gunwale, because he was hanging in the sea. Sweat could not evaporate in water, and there might possibly be some penetration of the pure fluid through the pervious membrane of his skin.