Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

The Leopard reached the crest. Green water blinded him. It cleared, and through the bloody haze running from his cloth he saw the vast breaking wave with the Waakzaamheid broadside on its curl, on her beam-ends, broached to. An enormous, momentary turmoil of black hull and white water, flying spars, rigging that streamed wild for a second, and then nothing at all but the great hill of green-grey with foam racing upon it.

"My God, oh my God," he said. "Six hundred men."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Throughout the day the Leopard ran under her foretopsail alone, and throughout the day the barometer moved up. The slackening of the wind that Jack had noticed before the sinking of the Waakzaamheid continued, but the sea was still as high or even higher for a while, and there was no possibility of altering course more than a point, still less of heaving to.

Jack lay there in his cot in the strangest state of daze. He knew that the ship was steering), well, and that she was in good hands; he knew that the pumps were gaining, and that the carpenter had dealt with the shattered deadlights, while Killick and his mates were now restoring the great cabin, where they had already set the stove to rights; and he knew there was a strong likelihood that the storm was blowing itself out - that the ship had come through, and with all her guns aboard. If the Dutchman had not foundered when he did, they must have followed her water over the side. Yet all these things were at a remove. He knew them, but they did not concern him much. The vision of the Waakzaamheid on her beam-ends, overwhelmed by that terrible sea, presented itself again and again to his inner eye. This was war; she had sought the battle; she had done her utmost to destroy the Leopard; it was the biter bit, and his ship had accomplished a feat of great value to the Royal Navy in the farther Indies. But it filled him with a kind of sorrow, a strange abiding grief.

A light appeared, and he closed his eyes. "Well, my dear," said Stephen, "you do not like the light: just so.' He put it behind a book and they talked quietly for a while. It was, as Jack had supposed, a splinter that had wounded him, a two-foot piece of oak with a lagged cutting edge,

sent flying by the Dutchman's shot. "I dare say it will give V(u pain in your head for some davs," said Stephen. "The wound itself is spectacular, and it will spoil your beauty; but you have had many worse. It was Lord Nelson's wound, you know - yo Ur forehead hanging over your eye. I Jack smiled. He would almost have done without an arm to follow Nelson. "Yet I do not quite like the bang the flat side gave you; there is some degree of concussion. Still, that is nothing to what the recoiling gun might have done. But for the interposition of St John, you were mere pulp, of little interest even to anatomy. As it is, I have great hopes of your leg. Is there any feeling in it, now?"

"Leg? What leg? Why, it is numb! Upon my sacred honour, it is numb."

"Never be perturbed, my dear; I have seen far uglier limbs preserved."

After a silence in which Jack seemed to lose all interest in his leg, he said, "Stephen, what is that round your neck? You was not hurt, I trust?"

"It is a woollen comforter against the cold, knitted by Mrs Wogan. The lively red is designed to increase the wearer's sense of warmth, by the association of ideas. I am much obliged to her."

"Which Mr Grant asks can he report," said Killick, thrusting his head through the door, and speaking in a hoarse whisper.

Stephen stepped out and told Grant that the patient must not be disturbed; disturbance might agitate his mind.

"Do you mean he is not right in the head?" cried Grant.

"I do not," said Stephen. lie disliked the man's eager tone extremely, his obvious willingness to believe the worst; in any case he was on edge from want of sleep, and when he returned to the sleeping-cabin his face had a wicked, reptilian look. In his remoteness Jack did not notice it, however: he said, "After anything of any action, I always have the blue devils. This time it is much worse. I

see that -ship broaching to, and all her people, five or six hundred men. I see her over and over again. Can you explain that, Stephen? Is it something in the physical fine?"

"To some extent I think it is," said Stephen. "Five and twenty drops of this' - pouring carefully from a bottle by the shaded light - 'will rectify your humours, as far as physic can."

"It is less disgusting than your usual dose," said Jack. "I forgot to ask you, how was your night? How does your Gipsy woman come along?"

"I cannot answer for Mrs Boswell: the Caesarean section is no light undertaking, even without a hurricane. But if it can be fed, the child may live, the creature. It is, as you predicted, female; and therefore hardy. I was at a loss to know what to do with it at first."

"There is the girl that waits on Mrs Wogan.,

"There is. But you will recall that she was transported for infanticide, repeated infanticide. She is a little eccentric where babies are concerned, and I could not think her quite a proper person. However, I opened my mind to Mrs Wogan, and she very handsomely offered her services. She tends it at present in a basket, lined with wool; and begs it may be indulged with a hanging stove."

"Christ, Stephen, how I wish Tom Pullings were here," said Jack, and drifted off to sleep.

In the wardroom Bryon and Babbington were playing chess while Moore and Benton looked on. Fisher took Stephen aside and said, "What is all this I hear about the Captain's intellects being disturbed?"

Stephen looked at him for a moment and said, "It is no part of my function to discuss my patients' maladies, and if the Captain's mind were in any way affected I should be the last to say so. But as it is not, I may tell you that Captain Aubrey, though weak from loss of blood, is

intellectually a match for any two men here. Nay, any three or four. Bread and blood, s1r,"he cried. "What do you mean by questioning me? Your manner is as offensive as your matter. You are impertinent, sir.' He took a quick step forward and Fisher fell back, appalled. He was sorry to have offended - he had meant no harm - if a natural concern had led him into impropriety he would most willingly withdraw. With this he edged round the table and hurried from the room.

"Well done, Doctor," said Captain Moore. "I love a man who can bite, if vexed. Come and have a glass of grog."

Stephen turned his cold glare on the Marine; but although he had had a wicked night of it and great responsibility, and although his anxiety for Jack had made him savage, Moore's round red goodhumoured friendly face brought a smile to his own. "Why, no," he said. "I was too hasty, too hasty by half."

"To be sure," said Moore, near the bottom of his glass, "for a moment the Owner's wits were all astray, and small wonder, when you consider the knock he had. You may not believe me, but when I gave him Joy of the victory, he said he could take no joy in it at all. The captain of a fifty-gun ship to take no joy in sinking a seventy-four! Clearly, for the moment he was all to seek. But from that to say his intellects are disturbed, why . . . "

The door opened, letting in a blast of freezing air, and Turnbull appeared, calling for a hot drink. He was covered with snow, which he distributed pretty liberally about the wardroom, beating it from his cloak in thick clots. "It has come on to snow,"he said. "Would you believe it? Half a foot on deck, and falling fast."

"How is the wind?" asked Babbington.

"Dropping all the time; and the snow has flatted the sea amazingly. It began with rain, and then turned to snow. Would you believe it?"

Grant came out of his cabin, and Turnbull told him that it had come on to snow. At first it had been rain, but now

there was half a foot of snow on deck; and both wind and sea had dropped amazingly.