Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"Signal the cutter to follow, run down and pick 'em up. We do not want to lie here all day, firing guns, while they wander about in the fog looking for us. I do not like the look of this current, either. There will be plenty of ice tomorrow, and clear weather, if this breeze goes on."

The Leopard ran down, heaved to within three-quarters of a mile of the island, unloaded the jolly-boat, hoisted it in, and waited a while for the cutter. During this time a thin gleam broke through the fog, and although Stephen could not distinguish anything but a single giant petrel he did have the pleasure of seeing even greater masses of ice fall from the high cliffs above the low-lying mist, masses the size of a house that either shattered at the foot of the mountain or plunged straight into the sea, sending up vast fountains of water: scores of these monstrous great blocks.

The cutter was hoisted in. Jack said, "Spritsail, foresail, topsails and topgallants: give the island a wide berth with this damned current, then east south -east."

The watch changed. Turnbull came on deck, muffled like a bear; Babbington handed over: 'Here you have her; spritsail, foresail, topsails, topgallants; give the ice-island a wide berth, then east-south-east," and Stephen, licking a piece of ice - it was quite fresh - once again meditated upon the enormous amount of repetition in the service.

Jack lingered until Turnbull had trimmed the sails and the Leopard was making five or six knots; then he said, "Mr Grant, come and take a dish of tea in the cabin. You will join us, Doctor?"

"Thank you, sir," said Grant, "but I am sure you are not equal to company."

Jack mad e no reply: he stared over the side for a while, trying to pierce the fog and see the iceberg out on the larboard beam, but it was gone. Then he led the way aft, holding Stephen's arm, and followed, rather awkwardly, by Grant.

The awkwardness persisted throughout the tea drinking, and it caused Grant to speak in a voice louder and more brassy than usual. Stephen was glad to escape: 'I shall sit with Mrs Wogan and her stove for a while,"he said as he made his way down to the orlop.

He was on the top step of the lower ladder when he was flung bodily down to its foot. An enormous echoing crash seemed the cause, and the total arrest of the ship's forward motion. At once all the people below rushed over his body as they made their way on deck, and it was some time before he could gather his wits. fie heard furious contradictory cries of 'Up with the helm' and 'Down with the helm' and a confused bellowing.

Herapath came leaping below in two bounds, with a spike in his hand. Seeing Stephen he cried, "The key! The key! I must get her out from down there."

"Calm yourself, Mr Herapath. There are no rending timbers, no evident leak, no immediate peril. But here is the key, and that of the forepeak. You may liberate them if the water should rise.' He spoke quietly enough, but Herapath's frantic dismay affected him to the extent of causing him to step into his cabin, make a quick, Judicious selection of his papers and put them into his bosom before climbing up to the deck.

There he found an appearance of complete disorder, some men running aft, others running forward to Join the vague shadowy forms on the forecastle. The ship and everything around her was shrouded deep in fog until an eddy of wind tore it apart; and there, high above the masthead, he saw a wall of ice, soaring up and up, leaning out so as to overhang the deck; and its base, with the breaking waves, was not twenty feet away.

"Haul of all,"came Jack's voice, loud and clear, doubled by the echo of the ice. The disorder vanished, the yards creaked round, the towering wall moved sideways, gently on and on until it lay abeam. Then the fog closed in and a dead silence fell.

"Fore topgallant staysail," said Jack. "Rig the pumps."

The sound of running feet and hauling died away: in the silence nothing could be heard but once the thunderous crash of falling ice some way to starboard, the grinding of the pumps, and the gush of water from the side. No one spoke: all on the quarterdeck stood motionless, and their breath, condensing, Joined the silent fog. Silence, and the ship dead still, quite motionless.

Then a vast rending that jarred the Leopard throughout her length and breadth, and she began to move.

"Helm amidships," said Jack.

"No helm, sir," said the quartermaster, spinning the wheel.

Babbington raced below. "Rudder's beat off, sir," he reported.

"We shall soon deal with that," said Jack. "All hands to the pumps."

Now began a period of the most intense activity. Stephen saw sails taken in, others lowered down, and sheets let fly. Mr Gray or his mates kept running up to report the depth of water in the well, and presently Jack disappeared, hobbling with his arm round Bonden's neck. His face was firm and confident when he returned, but Stephen was persuaded that he had found a very grave state of affairs below. This impression was confirmed within the minute, for parties were taken from the pumps and set to lighten ship. Her precious guns went overboard, splashing into the quiet, misty sea through their open ports, their careful breeching slashed through with an axe. All the shot within reach. All the hard won ice that was still on deck. The anchors, cut from the bows. The great cables followed them, and cask after cask of provisions, all that were nearest to the hatchways. Hours of furious toll.

"How well they throw up the water,"said Stephen to his neighbour on the pump-winch.

"Too bloody well, mate," said the seaman, who did not recognize him in the growing dark. "The scuppers can I t take it all. It's swilling about the deck, and if this fucking sea gets up any more, it'll pour down the hatch every time she rises."

"Perhaps we shall exhaust it very soon."

"Hold your law and pump, you silly bugger. You don't know nothing."

The sea mounted, the wind blew stronger; men were sent all along the lee scuppers to keep them clear and help the water over the side. But at last the hatch had to be battened down, and the lightening of the ship grew harder still. At midnight the cleverer hands were called from the pumps, and they set to in the waist, plying needle and palm by lantern-light, sewing rolls of oakum to a studdingsail that was to be passed under the ship's bottom to stop the leak; but still the pumps whirled on and on, and in time the night assumed an everlasting quality - heaving round the winch, poising on the roll in the darkness to thrust with all one's force, was all that mattered in the world. At one point there was a general cheer at the report that the larboard chain-pump was sucking, but they did not stop for a moment: and although the report proved false - it was only a temporary blocking of the channel the cry itself was encouraging.

Once the extreme measures had been taken the hands were relieved at regular intervals, and they trooped aft to the wardroom, where the purser and his steward had thin grog, biscuit, cheese and sausage laid out on the table. They all ate together, worn and exhausted by the toll at the heavy pump winches and even more by the icy wind and the rain, but still hopeful, still cheerful, as though this were an unpleasant, long-lasting dream that would come to an end in time.

The slow grey morning showed a troubled, broken sea, a strong and rising wind: the Leopard, low and heavy, had lost her main topsail and her foretopgallant. Hands could not be spared from the pumps to furl them, and they had blown to ribbons. Shortly after, the foretopsail followed them. Yet now the studdingsail that was to stop the leak was over the side, and men with ropes on either gangway were working it along the bottom. The great question was to find the leak, for since the ship had first struck the ice stern-on and had then turned, hanging on her keel, there was no telling where it might be. Grant was right out on the jibboom in spite of the heavy sea - it very nearly killed him twice - but he could make out no damage to the bows; and in the close-packed hold, deep in water, it was of course impossible to come at her bottom or her sides.