Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

A moderate breeze off the shore blew windows in the fog, and strange turbulencies; out over the sea it formed again, but on the landward side it was low-lying and patchy. Over the harbour and the navy yard the upper masts thrust up into clear air, and in many places the hulls of the nearer ships could be seen. Neither Jack Aubrey nor Mr Herapath, who was sitting with him, had missed a move as the President and Congress got under way. They had been lying at single anchor throughout the morning's flood tide, and now at slack water the President's fife could be heard through the silence, squeaking 'Yankee Doodle' to encourage the hands at the capstanbars. The big frigate, looking perfectly enormous in the fog, moved steadily across the smooth harbour: a freak of the breeze or some odd echo brought the cry 'Up and down, sir' clear to the open window, and it was followed by the crisp orders.

'Hook the cat.'

'Man the cat.'

'Off nippers.'

'Away with the cat.' 'Hook the fish.'

'Away with the fish.'

'Haul taut and bitt the cable.'

In a single movement the President dropped and sheeted home her topsails; and the Congress did the same.

'There they go,' murmured Jack, as the dim, ghostly sails vanished in the fog: but a moment later both ships set their topgallantsails, and these rose well above the bank, so that the frigates' course could be followed far along the intricate, turning fairway. As they went, Herapath named the shoals and banks until he came to Lovell's Island, where first the President and then the Congress faded quite away. 'At this rate, you should hear the great guns in about an hour,' he said. 'If the squadron is close in.'

Jack sighed. The American commodore had chosen the perfect moment for slipping out, and unless he ran bodily into the Royal Navy there was very little chance of his being seen.' Herapath knew it too: but for some time they both listened, their heads cocked sideways, against all reason, 'It seems a wicked thing to say,' observed Herapath at last, 'wicked to wish for battle and death, yet if those two ships were taken now, it might bring this accursed war to an end - shorten it in any case - and prevent still more waste of blood and treasure. Well, sir,' he said, standing up, 'I must leave you: and I trust I have not stayed too long or tired you. The Doctor spoke of five minutes and no more.'

'Not at all, my dear sir. It was most benevolent in you to come; your visit has set me up amazingly, and I hope that your good nature may induce you to look in again, when business does not tie you to your desk.'

When Mr Herapath was gone Jack listened to the silence for a while, then slipped out of bed and began to bound about the room. He was naturally a very powerful man, and heavy, his strength was coming back, and although his right arm was still painful, its muscles flaccid, his left had grown much more deft with exercise, and now he whirled a ponderous chair over his head, thrusting and cutting, backhand and fore, with a wicked lunge from time to time, and all this in deadly earnest. He was a ludicrous sight, leaping to and fro in his nightshirt, but if he were to obey Stephen's orders to the letter - if he were to lie there a mere hulk, doing nothing to prepare for the day when he might be of some use - his heart would surely break. Presently the Emperor of Mexico joined him, and they pranced and sparred together; but not for long. Captain Aubrey's madness, his savage grunting as he lunged, his red and sweating face, frightened most of his neighbours; and they sensed the savage grief behind his cheerful front. Behind his back they tapped their foreheads, and said that there were limits - this was not a lunatic asylum. Some of the younger nurses were not too well assured, either; and when Maurya Joyce, a faint slip of a girl that a breeze might carry away, came in and bade him 'put it down now, Captain dear, and go back to your bed this minute,' she did so in a squeak. However, he obeyed at once, and seeing him docile she went on in a firmer tone, 'You know very well you are not allowed up, for shame, oh fie, Mr Aubrey. And three gentlemen to see you too.' She tweaked him into respectability, smoothed his sheets, put on his nightcap and whispered, 'Will I fetch you a p-o-t before they come, at all?'

'If you please, my dear,' said Jack. 'And my razor too, while you are about it.' He expected some of the Constitution's officers - Mr Evans was particularly attentive, and the other officers looked in when they were not busy with their gutted ship - or some of the captured English: the daily management of the Asclepia was such that all these people, especially Mr Evans, were found to be exceptions to the rule that forbade him visitors. But following the chamber-pot and the razor, it was Jahleel Brenton who walked in, accompanied by his secretary and a strong, surly man in a cocked hat and a buff waistcoat with brass buttons, presumably a constable or a sheriff's man.

Mr Brenton began in a conciliatory tone; he begged Captain Aubrey not to be agitated - there had been some misunderstanding last time - this visit had nothing to do with the Alice B. Sawyer; it was only to check a few particulars that had not been fully noted down before, and to ask for an explanation of a few sheets that had been found among his papers. 'Our office is required to check all documents found on prisoners of war before any exchange can be contemplated. This, for example,' he said, showing

a page covered with figures. Jack looked at it: the figures were in his own hand; the sheet was somehow familiar, though he could not place it. They were not astronomical calculations, nor anything to do with a ship's course, run, or position. Where had Killick dredged it up? Why had he preserved it? Then all at once everything was clear: these were his calculations of the food consumed by the squadron during his second visit to the Cape, kept all these years as something that might come in, something that formed part of that general sense of order and neatness that was part of his character as a sailor.

'These are victualling notes,' he said. 'Compiled according to a system of my own. You will see that they add up to a yearly consumption of one million eighty-five thousand two hundred and sixty-six pounds of fresh meat; one million one hundred and sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five pounds of biscuit and one hundred and eighty-four thousand three hundred and fifty-eight pounds of soft tack; two hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and thirteen pounds of flour; one thousand and sixty-six bushels of wheat; one million two hundred and twenty-six thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight pints of wine, and two hundred and forty-four thousand nine hundred and four pints of spirits.'

The secretary wrote down the explanation: he and Brenton looked at one another and sniffed. 'Captain Aubrey,' said Brenton, 'do you expect me to believe that the Leopard consumed one million eighty-five thousand two hundred and sixty-six pounds of meat and one million one hundred and sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five pounds of biscuits in a year?'

'Who the devil is talking about Leopard? And what the devil do you mean, sir, with your "do you expect me to believe"?' began Jack, then he broke off, his face turned to the window, listening intently. Was that distant gunfire, or thunder, or the rolling of a dray down there on the quays? He was absolutely unconscious of the officials, and his

tense, remote expression impressed them strangely. Mr Brenton's eye fell on the razor, close by the Captain's hand; he checked his hasty answer and continued in an even voice, 'Well, we will leave that for the present. Now what have you to say to this?' holding out another paper. 'And pray what is the significance of kicky-wicky?'

Jack took it and his face grew paler still with anger: this was obviously, very obviously, a most private letter - he recognized that as soon as he recognized Admiral Drury's hand. 'Do you mean to tell me,' he said in a voice that filled the room, 'that you have broken the seal of a private letter, and that you have read what was clearly addressed to the lady alone? As God's my salvation. .