Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

Jack looked long and hard. 'At high water,' he said, 'I shall go into her and run out on the ebb. Will you not come with us, Herapath? I will rate you midshipman in any ship I command, and you could be the Doctor's assistant again. Things might be unpleasant for you in Boston.'

'Oh no, sir,' said Herapath. 'That would never do: though I am obliged to you for your care of me. I have ties here... and then, you know, we are enemies.'

'By God, so we are. I had forgot. I find it difficult to think of you as an enemy, Herapath.'

'Shall I give you a hand, stepping the mast, sir? It would be awkward, with your arm.'

The mast was stepped, young Herapath was gone. Jack stood there leaning on the rail, looking at the boat and out at the moonlit harbour, the vague looming of the islands and the powerful batteries. The tide flowed, perpetually mounting, the fenders strained and squeaked, and by imperceptible degrees the Arcturus's deck rose above the level of the quay. He kept a continual watch on the shifting currents, the swing of the small-craft and their buoys, the changing sky - the seaman was all alive -and all the time his ear was stretched, however illogically at this hour, for some clamour in the town, parties hurrying along the waterfront, searching the ships. He also weighed a number of alternative courses of action if the breeze and his forecasts should fail. And beneath all this his mind strayed far away: to England and Sophie of course, but also to Acasta, his promised command, and the possibility of a meeting that might set the balance more nearly right, and lift the black depression that had been with him ever since his first hour in the Java. Guerri�, Macedonian, and Java; it was more than a man could bear.

Before this Stephen had called him a deeply superstitious man. Perhaps he was: he certainly had a strong belief in luck, as shown by various portents, some of them trivial enough, such as the presence of the star Arcturus overhead, and by a feeling, impossible to define, though a particularly steady confidence formed part of it, that told him when the tide was in his favour. He felt it now, and although from a primitive piety he dared not let the words form even in the remotest corner of his mind, he thought he should succeed.

On the other hand, he felt there was bad luck with Diana, bad luck hanging about Diana. He did not wish to be below with her. She was unlucky; she brought bad luck. Although he was deeply grateful to her and although he liked the way she had borne up so far - no mincing, no vapours, no complaints - for himself he wished her away. For Stephen he could not tell. He had seen him so tormented by her and for her these last years, that he could no longer tell. Perhaps it was right that he should have her at last. In the dead silence of the middle watch, the graveyard watch, he believed he could just make out their voices, far below.

But the long silence was coming to an end. The first Monday-morning wagons rumbled somewhere in the town, not a great way off, and far to the right he heard carts. The tide was very near the full; the flow had been diminishing this last half hour, and the small-craft - there were a great many of them, pleasure-boats, fishing-boats, and some yachts - no longer strained at their buoys. The moon was only a handsbreadth from her setting.

'Joe,' came a voice from the darkness under the Arcturus's stern. 'Joe. Are youse a-going out?'

'I ain't Joe,' said Jack.

'Who are you, then?' asked the boat, now visible.

'Jack.'

'Where's Joe?'

'Gone to Salem.'

'Are youse a-going out, Jack?'

'Maybe.'

'You got any bait, Jack?'

'No.'

'Well, fuck you, Jack.'

'And fuck you too, mate,' said Jack mildly. He watched the boat scull clear, hoist its sail, quietly swearing, and glide away on the slack water. Then he went below, groping along aft to the bread-room. He saw light showing through the joints in the hinged sheet, tapped, and heard Diana's low voice, 'Who is it?'

'Jack,' he said, and the flap opened, showing Diana by the shielded lantern, with a pistol in her lap. The atmosphere was stifling, and the flame quite low. She put her finger to her lips and said, 'Hush. He has eaten everything in the basket, and now he is fast asleep. He had had nothing all day. Can you imagine that?'

Some part of Jack's mind had also dwelt on breakfast, since his stomach had been calling out for some time, and he was conscious of a piercing disappointment. 'Well, he must wake up now. We are going into the boat: the tide is on the turn.'

They tweaked and pulled him into a state of wakefulness and led him on deck, clutching his bundle.

For a vessel of her size, the Arcturus had no great plank-sheer, but even so the dim boat was a long way down. 'Must we change ships?' he asked.

'I believe we must,' said Jack.

'Would it not be better to wait for the tide to rise and float the boat a little higher, a little nearer to the deck?'

'Their relative positions would remain the same, I do assure you. Besides, the tide is already at the full. Come, Stephen, you have often jumped down into a boat deeper than that.'

'I am thinking of Diana.'

'Oh, Diana - she will skip down like a good 'un. You give her a hand over the side and I will receive her in the boat. Diana, where is your chest? Stephen, clap on to this line, and lower away handsomely when I give the word.' He swung over the rail, dropped to the mainchains, and with his left hand grasping a dead-eye he lowered himself into the boat, 'Lower away,' he called, and the little trunk came down. 'Now, Diana.' He guided her feet on to the chain-wale. 'Mind your petticoats and jump.'

'Damn my petticoats,' said Diana, and jumped He received her full-pitch with his good arm 'No one could call you a light woman, Diana,' he said, setting her down among the bait-pots and the pervading reek of decaying squid, and then blushed in the darkness 'Come on, Stephen,' he called. There were wagons moving along the quay, and several lanterns, voices out on the harbour, bobbing lights.

'Jack, have you a piece of string in your pocket? I cannot climb down without doing up my parcel.'

'Poor lamb,' whispered Diana, 'he is still half asleep.' She sprang up the side like a boy, took off her shawl, wrapped the papers in it, tied the corners, and tossed it into the boat.

'We shall get off some time, I suppose,' said Jack, more or less to himself, shipping the rudder. And when at last they were down, 'Diana, stow yourself right forward and do not get in the way. Stephen, there are the rowlocks: pull right ahead. Give way.' He shoved off; the Arcturus's side receded; Stephen made several effectual strokes.

'Boat your oars,' said Jack. 'Clap on to the halliard -no, the halliard. God's death - haul away. Bear a hand, Stephen. Belay. Catch a couple of turns round the kevel- the kevel.'

The scow gave a violent lurch. Jack dropped all, scrambled forward, caught two turns round the kevel and slid back to the tiller. The sail filled, he brought the wind a little abaft the beam, and the scow headed out to sea.

'You are cursed snappish tonight, Jack,' said Stephen. 'How do you expect me to understand your altumal cant, without pondering on it? I do not expect you to understand medical jargon, without giving you time to consider the etymology, for all love.'

'Not to know the odds between a halliard and a sheet, after all these years at sea: it passes human understanding,' said Jack.

'You are a reasonably civil, complaisant creature on dry land,' said Stephen, 'but the moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw - do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there - no longer a social being at all. It is no doubt the effect of the long-continued habit of command; but it cannot be considered amiable.'