Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

Jack was copying his rough notes into the log-book, and when he came to this triumphant entry he smiled. He was tempted to embellish it with an epithet or two - to add something about the feeble screech by way of a cheer when the gain of the first clear foot was reported - to describe the extraordinary change of spirit, the flood of new strength that sent the winches flying round, so that from having to encourage, threaten, beat or even cajole the exhausted hands, their officers had to restrain their zeal, for fear that the pump-chains would break or choke yet again - to speak of the Christmas dinner (fresh pork and double plum-duff) eaten with such merriment in relays. But he knew that even if he could find words to describe this change, a log-book was not the place for them, and he contented himself with drawing a small pointing hand in the margin.

His earlier notes, those that dealt with the first days

after the boats went off, had been lost when he and the carpenters were trying to rig some kind of a rudder, working out of the stern window - a following sea had set the whole cabin in a swim. They had recorded the Leopard's eastward course, directly before the wind for the most part, travelling on in what seemed a slow death agony, while all her people's efforts were divided between trying to keep her afloat and trying to get her to steer, The pumps never still, except when they broke down or choked with the infernal coal: the men perpetually heaving the winches round and sometimes even baling too, when the water surged up through the scuttles and hatchways, as though the ship were settling at last.

Even now, with the leak so much reduced that the ship made no more than the pumps could throw out, the Leopard still could not be made to wear and stay. She was very much by the head, so that the water there did not flow back to the well; and the almost invariably western winds with following seas kept her so. ~he first steering machine had been too heavy for its supports and had carried away; the remaining hawsers, towing vanes of one kind and another, had little effect when they were veered out; and none of the combinations of sails and drogues had moved her head more than a few points. Now he and Mr Gray were busy, or as busy as the poor old carpenter's failing strength would allow, with a steering oar, an object that harked back to the earliest days of sail, now taken up on an enormous scale.

The question of steering had of course been of the first importance from the moment the Leopard had lost her rudder, but these last few days it was even more present to his mind than usual. At any moment now the Crozet Islands might heave in sight, and to reach them he must be able to manoeuvre the ship. Just when they might appear he could not tell: in the first place he had little confidence in the longitude laid down by their French discoverer, and in the second his chronometers had been overturned in the

drunken turmoil when the boats put off, so that he had only his hack-watch for his position. However, neither he nor the Frenchman could be far out in the latitude, and he had been keeping the Leopard as near to 46'45'S as ever he could, though with these covered skies he could rarely make a noon observation. And for days now, in spite of the shortage of hands, the sharpest eyes in the ship had been at the masthead.

The log ran on: 'Sunday. Course E 10'N. Latitude estimated 46'SO'S, longitude 50'30'E. Fresh breezes at W and WNW. Larboard pump sucked. Rigged church for shortened prayers and thanksgiving; read Articles of War. Admonished Wrn Plaice, James Hole, Thos. Paine and M. Lewis for drunkenness and sleeping. People employed about steering-machine and pumps. Set the foresail and middle staysail. PM starboard pump-chain broke for the eighth time; hove up and rove again in under one hour."

Jack had very nearly brought the book up to this day's date when the welcome drum began to beat, and he stumped out into the rain and down the hatchway to the wardroom. All the officers messed there now, and, since both the Captain's and the wardroom cook had taken to the boats, and Killick's notion of cookery went little farther than toasted cheese, their food came straight from the galley, unadorned. They still ate it in a certain style, however, and they still made a fairly creditable appearance; for with the Captain presiding this amounted to something like a cabin-invitation, and they all wore at least a uniform coat. Although the remaining oldsters had come from the drowned midshipmen's berth to fill the places left by Grant, Turnbull, Fisher and Benton, the long table looked rather sparse, particularly as there were no servants behind the chairs; but, as Jack, Babbington, Moore and Byron frequently observed, the jewer the better fare. Today's fare, by immemorial custom, should have been half a pint of dried peas and oatmeal, this being a banyan day; but the pumps still called for unusual exertion and

the steering-oar was going to call for a great deal more, so all hands were allowed a piece of salt beef. As every officer took his full share at the winches, night and day, and as the temperature was only just above freezing, the wardroom ate up its beef with silent, barbarous avidity, relaxing only when the plates disappeared and the wine came in. A brief return to civility - the King's health - a very little conversation - and Jack said, "Well, gentlemen

The steering-oar was a most imposing affair, a spare foresailyard with a paddle at the seaward end: it was to pivot on the taffrail, strengthened for the purpose, and the inboard arm was to be moved from side to side by tackles to the crossjack yard and the mizen. The rigging of such an engine called for a high degree of skill with ropes, blocks, and the marlinspike, an intuitive grasp of marine dynamics: Stephen could be of no use - indeed, he was invited to go away - and when he had finished his spell at the pump he stood at the rail, indulging himself with a view of the birds. They had increased in number quite remarkably these last days - skuas, whalebirds, albatrosses and petrels of different kinds, sheathbills, terns - and he had noticed that they appeared to be travelling to or from some fixed point to the north. The north, however, was at present swathed in rain, and he crossed to the starboard side, where the light was better for looking down into the water, with its splendid wealth of penguins: here he had seen a seal pursuing them, so that the little creatures shot from the surface almost like flying fish, but not so far nor so efficiently, alas. And here he had seen the seal herself pursued, hunted down and dismembered by a troop of killer whales, so that the sea turned red. Penguins: there they were, flying nimbly under water, chasing long thin fishes that in their turn were feeding amidst an infinity of fine stout shrimps, as pink as if they had been boHed. Duty called Stephen to the side of Mrs Boswell and young Leopardina and to his sickbay; humanity called upon him to visit Mrs Wogan. In vain. "If her constitution can

withstand a Caesarian delivery in the midst of battle," he observed, "five minutes delay cannot much affect Mrs Boswell; besides, she is doing extremely well - no doubt she is asleep.' Five minutes: ten: and as the warmth of pumping was leaving him - as the wind was biting through his fourth waistcoat and comforter - he was rewarded by what appeared to be the sea-bed rising to the surface right by the ship, a vast dark area that grew clearer and clearer until it assumed the form of a whale. But a whale of unspeakable dimensions: still it rose, unhurried, and as he stared, holding his breath, the sea rounded in a smooth boll - the surface parted - the creature's streaming back appeared, dark blue-grey just flecked with white, stretching from the fore to the mizen-chains. The head rose higher still and expired a rushing let of air that instantly condensed in a plume as tall as the foretop and floated over the Leopard's bowsprit: and at the same moment Stephen himself breathed out. lie believed he heard the hissing inspiration just before the head sank and the enormous bulk slid over in an easy, leisurely motion; a dorsal fin appeared, far back; a hint of the flukes themselves, and the sea closed softly over Leviathan; but his hurry of spirits was so great that he could not be sure.