Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"It is a Mother Cary's chicken," said Grant. "Procellaria pelagica."

"Surely it is a fork-tailed petrel," said Stephen.

"I think not. The fork-tailed petrel is not to be found in these latitudes. That is Procellaria pelagica, one of what we call the turbinares.' He went on to tell Stephen a number of facts about birds in general, in a didactic tone that was but too familiar to the wardroom.

"Mr Combermere," said Jack at last. "Pennant and colours. Mr Larkin' - to the master by the wheel 'give her a point and a half."

The Leopard stated that she was a British man-of-war in commission, and fell off a little so that the message should be unmistakable. Half a minute passed, and then the Dutchman stated that he too was a British man-of-war in

commission: he backed his foretopsail, hauled up his courses, and lay to, presenting his broadside.

"Private signal," said Jack. "And make our number."

The private signal soared up and broke out. Jack's glass was trained upon the Dutchman's quarterdeck: he saw the answering hoist prepared - rather slow - he saw it move up the signal halliard - rather slow again, with the distance between the ships lessening all this time - and then come down from half way. "Stand by to start the bowlines," he said, without removing his eye from the glass. The Dutchman's hoist was moving up again, apparently corrected: up and up, and it broke out. The wrong reply: a mere nonsense of flags heaved out in the hope of a lucky chance. "Hard over," he said, and the helmsman spun the wheel. "Mr Combermere, enemy of superior force in sight: general chase to south-south -west. Two guns to leeward, and keep it flying. And let us hope he understands it."

At the same time the blue ensign vanished from the Waakzaamheid's peak, her own colours raced up, her side disappeared behind a cloud of smoke, and she put before the wind. A few heart-beats later the deep roar of her guns reached the Leopard, and before it had died, close on half a ton of shot, fired at extreme range, tore up the sea. The shots were admirably well grouped, but they fell short at first graze: several carried on, skipping over the swell in long bounds, and three reached their mark, a hole appeared in the maincourse; the tight-packed hammocks just by Mr Fisher's head lurched inwards; and there was a ringing thump somewhere forward.

The Leopard had already brought the wind abaft the beam: now it was on her quarter, and she was running fast towards the setting sun. "Royals and weather studdingsails," said Jack, and he walked on to the poop to watch the Waakzaamheid. She had lost way, lying-to, and although she dropped her courses and sheeted home so briskly that he nodded with approval, and although she too set royals and studdingsails, it was long before she began to make up

the distance lost. And even then, with this light breeze, she did not gain.

"Mr Grant," he said, "come up the fore and main topsail sheets half a fathom: the pitch-barrel to the stern-davits: and pass the word for Mr Burton."

In the bare, stripped cabin he said to the gunner, "Now, Mr Burton, we shall have some fun.'The Leopard's speed was lessening, in answer to Jack's order, and with it the distance between the ships. Their pieces, the brass nine pounders, were already loaded and run out: they stared along the gleaming barrels at the Waakzaamheid coming slowly up and throwing a fine bow-wave. The gun-crews crouched on either side; the slow-match smouldered in its tubs; the powder-men stood well behind, holding their cartridges.

"Whenever you please, Mr Burton," said Jack: and as he spoke there was a flash on the Dutchman's forecastle - his bow-chaser trying the range. "Handspike, Bill,"murmured the gunner: he eased his quoin to give a slightly greater elevation, paused for the Leopard's pitch, and pulled the lanyard. The gun roared and leaped back under his arched body: the wet swab was already down its throat as the crew hauled the gun inboard, and Burton craned out to see the fall of his shot. A little short, but straight and true.

Jack fired: much the same result. He sent to check the Leopard's way a trifle more, and some minutes later, when the Waakzaamheid was nearer by a hundred yards, the gunner made a hole in her foresail with a ricochet. From then on the nine-pounders fired as fast as they could load, bawling away in the rapidly fading light until they were too hot to touch and they jumped clear of the deck at each recoil. They did no great damage, although Jack was almost certain he had got home three times, before the sudden darkness hid their target altogether. The last thing they saw of the Waakzaamheid that night was a distant blaze as she yawed and let fly with her full broadsides, firing at the Leopard's flashes, but firing quite in vain.

"House your guns," said Jack: and raising his voice, "Let go the barrel. Handsomely now."

The barrel of burning plitch, wlth crackers artfully disposed about it, gently touched the sea and floated off, emitting quite lifelike spurts of flame, as though from cannon, as it went.

Out on the quarterdeck he gave the order for the sheets to be hauled aft. He was soaking with sweat, tired, and happy. "Well, Mr Grant," he said, "I do not think we need beat to quarters today. What have you to report?"

"Just the hole in the mainsail, sir, and a little rigging cut; but I am afraid their first broadside damaged our scrollwork: knocked off the larboard leopard's nose."

"The Leopard's lost her nose,"said Jack to Stephen some time later, when the ship could be allowed a glim behind her deadlights and the dark-lanterns were put out. "If I were not so fagged, I believe I could make a joke about that, with so much pox aboard," and he laughed very heartily at the thought of his near approach to wit.

"When am I to be given my supper?" asked Stephen. "You invited me to partake of toasted cheese, in luxury. I find no luxury, but a shambles: I find no toasted cheese, but a host groping for jocosity about what is in fact a grave and painful disease. Yet stay, I think I do perceive the smell of cheese above the powder-reek and the stench of that vile dark-lantern. Killick, belay there; are you now about the cheese?"

"Which it's just coming up, ain't it?"said Killick angrily. He had not been allowed to fire a single shot, and he muttered something about 'those that worshipped their bellies . . . blowing out their gaffs by day and by night . . . never satisfied."

"In the interval," said Stephen, "might I hope to be told the outcome of all this hurry and banging and disturbance?"

"Why, it is clear enough," said Jack. "In half a glass we shall haul our wind, cross the Dutchman's wake, get to

windward of him, crowd all the sail we can, and so say farewell. Old Butterbox did everything he could; he very nearly made us uncomfortable, and if there had been a heavier sea he might have succeeded, because a bigger ship has a greater advantage when the sea runs high; and now all that remains to him is to make up the southing he has lost, cracking on regardless if he believes the signal I threw out to our imaginary friends, while we stand on for the Cape, having, I trust, bleared the honest burgher's eye, each of us peacefully carrying on our occasions, diverging farther and farther every watch all through the night, so that by dawn we may well be a hundred miles apart."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dawn broke, and once again Jack was knocked up; once again he was torn from the arms of an ideal Mrs Wogan with the news of a ship fine on the larboard bow. This time the Leopard's top-gallants had already vanished, but it was little more than a gesture to the conventions of war, because this time the Waakzaamheid was a good three miles nearer, perfectly recognizable in spite of the mist hanging over the cold milky sea - hanging and parting in the light air from the east, so that sometimes she almost entirely vanished and sometimes she looked spectral, unnaturally large, as she bore up, spread her wings, and headed for the Leopard.