Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"Love, of course," said Stephen.

The next day, having made his rounds, he said, "Mr Herapath, the Captain tells me that we are to stop at Recife, in Brazil, where we may replenish our medicinechest. I shall spend much of my time drawing up a statement of our requirements, and writing letters. May I therefore beg you to attend Mrs Wogan to the poop, the unfortunate lady who is confined in the orlop abaft the tiers?"

"Sir?"

"You are not yet quite familiar with our sea-terms, I find," said Stephen with great complacency. "I mean the floor below this, in about the middle; and the door is on your right-hand side. Or, as we say, the starboard. No, the larboard, since you will be going backwards. Well, never mind: let us not be pedantic, for all love. It is a small little door with a square holie in the bottom of it - a scuttle - along the passage where there was a Marine for ever walking up and down at one time. But perhaps you will never find it. I remember, years ago, before I became so amphibious an animal, that I wandered in the depths of a vessel much smaller than this, my mind strangely perplexed. Come, I will show you the way, and present you to the lady."

"Do not trouble, sir. Oh pray do not trouble," cried Herapath, suddenly bursting out of his silence. "I know the door perfectly. I have often - I have often remarked that particular door. It is on the way from here to the after cockpit, where I now sling my hammock. Pray do not give yourself the trouble."

"Here is the key," said Stephen. "You will make my compliments, if you please."

Mrs Wogan's appearance under the conduct of the surgeon's mate excited a certain amount of discreet curiosity on the quarterdeck, and much more envy. The older midshipmen still ached for her - their Captain did not beat for the sport of it - but even so, more than one of them found it necessary to visit the poop, to make sure that the ensign-staff was still there, and the taffrail. She was observed to be in remarkable looks, and, although she was decently subdued, as the Leopard's circumstances required, she and her companion seemed to have a great deal to say to one another. Three times her absurd gurgling laugh was heard, and three times the whole quarterdeck, from the officer of the watch to the grim old quartermaster at the con, smiled like fools.

The third time the sound of the cabin door wiped the smile off their faces. They moved over to the leeward side, with sober looks; for the Captain was among them. The Captain glanced at the sky, the set of the sails, the binnacle, and began his habitual pacing fore and aft, cocking an eye at the masthead every turn, in expectation of a hall. Again the laugh began, low but quite near, by the poop rail: it went on and on, swelling, rolling in pure amusement, and for the life of him he could not resist: disagreeable though his situation was, and heavy his mind, he felt an answering catch in the region of his stomach, and turned square to windward. "Though why in God's name I have to come it the grim old Stoic, would be hard to say," he remarked to himself: then finding that the inward heave would not be quiet, he stepped forward to the shrouds of the mainmast, laid his coat on a gun, swung himself over the bulwark, over the hammocks in their netting, and walked composedly up the ratlines. "Lord," he said as he mounted, "I have scarcely been aloft this commission. That is how captains get fat and ill-conditioned - ill-tempered, bilious, Jupiter Tonans.' fie was old enough not to have to hurry, not to have to outdo a twenty-year-old upper-yardsman; and that was just as well, for as he paused in the top he found that he was already puffing hard. He glanced at his paunch, shook his head, and then looked down at the quarterdeck. "Mr Forshaw," he called, picking out his youngest midshipman, a first-voyager, a slow, stupid, unhappy child, "bring me up my glass."

He waited, nothing loth, until the boy's anxious head appeared: with a violent, perilous writhe, Forshaw brought his short legs over the rim, landed in the top, and mutely offered the telescope. It was clear to Jack that for the moment the boy could not bring out a steady word, in spite of his studied calm. "Now I come to think of it, Mr Forshaw," he said, "I have not seen you sky-larking with the other reefers. Do you find the height disturbs you?"

He spoke quite kindly, in a tone of conversation, but even so Forshaw's face turned scarlet, and he gave a hopelessly confused answer: 'it was terrible, sir; he did not mind it at all."

"Nelson could do this sort of thing," thought Jack, "but I doubt that I can.' Nevertheless he went on. "The great point is not to look down, until you have the knack of it; and to hold on to the shrouds with both hands, not the ratlines. Now, come along with me to the topgallant crosstrees. We will take it easy."

Up and up towards the sky. "You will find it much like the stairs at home, presently - look up all the time - don't hang on too hard - breathe easy - handsomely round the futtocks, now, always take the outer topgallant shrouds - there now, put your arm round the heel of the royal - that's the royal mast, you see: sometimes we step it abaft the topgallant, running right down to the cap; but that means more weight aloft - and sit on the lacks; they serve to spread the royal shrouds. There, ain't that prime?" He stared over the enormous expanse of ocean at the western horizon, and there, exactly where it should be, lay a dark mass, firmer than any cloud. He unslung his telescope, and in the glass Cape St Roque assumed its well remembered form: the perfect landfall. "There," he said, nodding towards it, "that is America. You may go down now, and tell Mr Turnbull. It is much easier going down, because of gravity: but you must look up all the time."

Now and then he glanced down at the round face gazing religiously up, and beyond the face to the deck, long, thin, and wonderfully remote, a white rimmed sliver in the sea with little figures moving on it; but most of the time he stared at the cape. "How I hope to God that Stephen will let Pullings stay," he said aloud. "A year or so with that fellow Grant as my first would be . . .

The lookout's hail broke his train of thought, for by now the cape was visible from the yardarm below him, and he

heard the cry, "On deck, there. Land two points on the starboard bow."

From this time on the more loving family Leopards took to pen and ink, and those who could not write dictated to their learned friends, sometimes in plain English but more often in terms as stilted and official as they could contrive, and those uttered in a hieratic tone. According to his promise, Stephen passed on Mrs Wogan's request that she might add a letter to the rapidly filling bay. "I shall be interested to see what it contains," he said; and as he expected, Jack turned away - turned fast, but not quite fast enough to hide his expression of extreme distaste, and of something very near contempt.

Captain Aubrey would do his utmost to deceive an enemy by the use of false colours and false signals, by making him believe that the ship was a harmless merchantman, a neutral, or a compatriot, and by any other ruse that might occur to his fertile mind. All was fair in war: all, except for opening letters and listening behind doors. If Stephen, on the other hand, could bring Buonaparte one inch nearer to the brink of Hell by opening letters, he would happily violate a whole mail-coach full. "You will read captured despatches with open glee and exultation," he said, "for you concede that they are public papers. If you value candour, you must therefore admit that any document bearing on the war is also a public paper: you are to rid your mind of these weak prejudices."

In his heart Jack remained unconvinced; but Stephen received the letter. He sat there with it in his hands in the guarded privacy of the great cabin as the Leopard lay off Recife early in the morning, well out in the roadstead, with the reef that guarded the inner anchorage the best part of a mile away. The first sight of it struck him with a wholly unexpected force, for it was addressed to Diana: he had never thought of this possibility - had supposed their acquaintance to be slight - and it was some minutes before he could compose himself, and set about the seal. Seals