Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

She had had a rough time of it, rough even for the Bay; she had been tossed and bucketed about like a skiff, particularly in the early part of the blow, when the north-wester came shrieking across the western swell, cutting up a steep, confused, tumbling cross-sea that heaved her in all directions until she groaned again, and her working brought so much water through her sides that the pumps had been going watch and watch: a good sea-boat, a weatherly ship, always attentive to her helm; yet even her commander could not maintain that she was a dry one.

But her trials were coming to an end: the howl of the wind in her rigging had dropped half an octave, losing the hysterical edge of malignance, and there were a few breaks in the cloud. Captain Aubrey had been standing in streaming oilskins under the break of the poop these twelve hours past, learning the ways of his new charge; and at this point he held his sextant under his arm. The sextant was already set to something near the position of Antares, in the hope of a fleeting glimpse through the rifts: and an hour after the first break the noble star

appeared, racing madly northwards through a long thin gap, showing just long enough for him to fix it and bring it down to the horizon. To be sure, his horizon was very far from perfect, more closely resembling a mountain range than an ideal line, but even so the reading was better than he had hoped - the Leopard still had sea-room in plenty. He returned to the wheel, the figures turning smoothly in his mind, checked and rechecked with the same satisfying result. Then, having stepped to the lee-rail, there to throw up the aged Bath bun and the glass of Marsala that he had just swallowed, committing them to the sea with long accustomed ease, he addressed the officer of the watch: 'Mr Babbington," he said, "I believe you may bear up. She will wear foretopmast- and mainstaysails. Course southwest a half west.' As he spoke he saw the quartermaster's hairy face move into the glow of the binnacle-light as he stared at the half-hour glass: the last grains of sand ran out, the quartermaster murmured, "Shove off, Bill', and a tarpaulined figure, bent low against the driving rain and spray, hurried forward, holding tight to a lifeline stretched fore and aft, to strike seven bells in the middle watch - half past three in the morning. Babbington reached for his speaking-trumpet to call all hands to wear ship. "Stay," said Jack. "Half an hour will make no odds. Wear her at eight bells - there is no point in turning the larbowlines up."

He was strongly tempted to stay until the change in the watch, to see the manoeuvre carried out: but he had a thoroughly competent lieutenant in Babbington, a young

man he had formed himself, and his remaining on deck would show a want of confidence, would diminish Babbington's authority. He stayed another ten minutes and then went below, hanging his oilskin over a tub and wiping the mixture of salt sea and rain-water from his face with a towel placed there for that purpose: in the sleeping-cabin a very cross Killick, torn from the arms of his delight after little more than a week, was busy reslinging the cot, which a leak overhead had soaked through and through. "Those bleeding caulkers at the Yard," he muttered, "don't know their fucking business . . . I'd caulk 'em . . . oh, I'd caulk 'em, and with a red-hot caulking iron in their . . . " The fancy pleased him; his face grew less surly; and with something approaching amenity he said aloud, "There you are, sir: you can turn in now. Which you ain't dried your hair.' The last severely; and in fact Jack's hair was hanging in long yellow streamers down his back. Killick wrung it out like a cloth, remarked that it worn't so thick nor it was once upon a day, whipped it into a tight plait, and so took his leave.

Ordinarily Jack would have gone straight to sleep with an equal lack of ceremony, like an extinguished candle, but now from his waving cot he kept his eye on the tell-tale compass overhead. He had not been staring for long before a deeper thunder joined the roaring of the storm, the crash of the seas on the Leopard's side, and the song of the innumerable taut ropes and lines that communicated their general voice to her hull, where, resounding, it took on a deeper note: this was the rush of the larboard watch, racing through the after hatchway - the fore and main were battened down - to take up their duties after four hours' sleep. Almost at once the card began to turn against the lubber's point as the Leopard fell off: north-north-east, north-east by north, north-east, then faster to south of east, where the wind's voice almost died away, and round slower and slower to south-west and south-west and a half west, where it steadied. The Leopard had worn: she was

on the starboard tack, flanking across the seas with a fine lively corkscrew motion. Jack's eyes closed: his mouth opened, and from it (for he was lying on his back, with no wife to pinch or turn him round) came a deep, rasping, guttural snore of prodigious volume.

The screeching, hallooing, piping, and running about on the poop a few feet from the sleeper's head never disturbed him for a moment; his face remained blankly unconscious, though sometimes a smile crossed it, and once, in a dream, he laughed; yet some areas of the sailor's mind was still at work, for at two bells in the forenoon watch the waking Captain Aubrey was aware that the sea had steadily diminished throughout the remainder of the night, that the wind had hauled southwards, and that the Leopard was making a comfortable five knots.

"This coffee has been heated up. Boiled," he said, looking at his purplish brew. Killick's face assumed a mean, pinched expression, and the thought 'If people lay in their cots till all hours while others is tolling and moiling, they gets what they deserve' very nearly found expression; but in fact the coffee had been boiled, a crime not far short 'of hanging at this time of the Captain's day, and Killick contented himself with a disobliging sniff and the words, "There's another pot coming up."

"Where is the Doctor? And take your thumb out of the butter."

"At work since six bells in the morning watch, your honour," said Killick, with intent; and in a very low voice, "it worn't in it: nowhere near."

"Then jump forward and tell him there is some vile boiled coffee, if he can bear it. And my compliments to Mr Pullings: I should be happy to see him."

"Good morning, Tom," he cried, as his first lieutenant appeared. "Sit down and take a cup. You look as though you could do with it."

"Good morning, sir. It would go down very welcome.' 'You have a pretty bad report, I collect?" looking at Pullings's careworn, worried face.

"Yes, sir, that I have,"said Thomas Pullings, shaking his head.

"No masts sprung, I hope?"

"Not as bad as that, sir; but the convicts have scragged their superintendent; and their surgeon, he pitched down into the hold and broke his neck. All the convicts are more or less dead, so seasick, and one of the women is in a screeching fit. And the filth down there, you would not credit. I posted some Marines over 'em, just in case, but there is not one of 'em could harm a fly now - flat as pancakes, and hardly strength enough to groan. But apart from that, sir, and the forward chain-pump choked, foretop halliards badly chafed, and bowsprit gammoning not what it might be, everything is shipshape, tolerably shipshape."

"Scragged him, did they?" said Jack, whistling. "Is he dead?"

"As a doornail, sir. His brains all over the deck. They must have done it with their irons."

"Their surgeon dead too?"

"As to that, sir, I cannot rightly say: the Doctor has him in the sickbay."

"Ah, the Doctor will set him to rights. You remember him sawing the gunner's head, in Sophie, and setting his brains - why, there you are, Stephen! A good morning to you. Here is an elegant kettle of fish, hey, hey? But I dare say you have set their surgeon to rights?"