Patrick O'Brian - The Mauritius Command

"There, there, take it easy," said Jack, looking anxiously into his face and speaking in that compassionate protective voice which has vexed so many invalids into the tomb.

"There is not a moment to lose," cried Stephen, starting up.

Jack pressed him back into the cot with irresistible force, and still in the same soothing voice he said, "We are not losing any time at all, old Stephen. Not a moment. Do not grow agitated. All is well. You are all right now."

"Oh, your soul to the devil, Jack Aubrey," said Stephen, and in an even stronger tone, "Killick, Killick, you mumping, villain, bring in the coffee, will you now, for the love of God. And a bowl of sweet oil. Listen, Jack'- writhing from beneath his hand and sitting up--"you must press on, crack on, clap on, as fast as ever you can go. There are two frigates out there battering one of ours. And one of them, the Venus, has lost masts, rigging--Bonden will tell you the details--and you may catch her, if only you will make haste, and not sit there leering like a mole with the palsy."

"Pass the word for my coxswain," called Jack, and to Stephen he said, "We are already making haste, you know." He named the sails that were now urging the Boadicea towards the distant battle, and he assured Stephen that the moment she cleared the land-breeze and entered the region of the south easter offshore, he would let fall his maincourse and set his staysails, for then they would have the wind on the quarter, rather than right aft; and Stephen was to take notice that the presence of the captain on deck was not essential to the progress of the ship, once he was blessed with a seamanlike set of officers. The appearance of Bonden and of Killick bearing the sweet oil cut off

Stephen's reply: he groped among the heap of wet clothes, brought out his watch and dipped it in the oil, observing, "It has survived several grave immersions; let us hope it may survive this. Now, Barret Bonden, I shall give the Commodore a succinct account of the position, and you will supply the technical details." He collected his mind, and went on, "Yesterday evening, you must understand, I was standing on the most elevated point of the Morne Brabant, where it overlooks the sea, and conversing with some gentlemen who among other things told me, and this I must not omit, that the Bellone, Minerve and lphigenia are undergoing heavy repairs, with their guns all out, and will not be fit for sea this fortnight and more: Bonden was at a certain distance--"

"A cable's length, sir," said Bonden.

When I perceived a ship sailing down from Port-Louis in the direction of La Reunion. One of the gentlemen, who had followed the sea for many years, asserted that she was an Indiaman. He pointed out her general mercantile appearance, and the presence of a subsidiary posterior deck, or platform--"

�oop," muttered Bonden. "The infallible mark of your Indiaman; and he remarked that it would be strange indeed if Monsieur Hamelin, then in Port-Louis, should let such a prize escape him. And in fact shortly afterwards we descried the Vinus and a smaller frigate--"

"Pardon Ene, sir," said Bonden, "Vinus and a sloop."

"The little one had three masts," said Stephen sharply. "I counted them."

"Yes, sir; but she was only a sloop." And addressing Jack, Bonden went on, "Sixteen-gun corvette Victor, sir."

"Well, never mind. They pursued the alleged Indiaman, the Venus outsailing her companion: and then to our surprise the Indiaman turned out to be no Indiaman, at all. She took down or folded a number of sails, allowed the Venus to come close, and discharged a number of guns upon her, at the same time displaying a banner indicating she was a man-of war."

Jack looked at Bonden, who said, "Bombay, sir; a country-built Indiaman bought into the service in the year five. My cousin George, he sailed in her one commission, gunner's mate; said she was a good seaboat, but mortal slow. Twenty-four eighteen-pounders, two long nines, and fourteen twenty fourpounder carronades."

"At this," said Stephen, "the Veus drew back, waiting for her consort, and the Bombay pressed on. The sun had set: we descended the cliff, made our way to the aviso, and there I resigned the conduct of affairs into Bonden's hands."

"Well, sir," said Bonden, "I knew you would be wishful to know as soon as ever could be, so we nipped through the Dutchman's Passage with barely a scrape, though the tide was out, fetched the Victor's wake, crossed under her stern in the dark just before moonrise, and worked up to windward with all she could wear and well-nigh more. We was well ahead, running nine-ten knots by the time the moon was well up, and we see Vinus coming up on the Bombay hand over hand, seven knots to her six, maybe; and at the beginning of the middle watch, when we had sunk the land long since, she ranged up alongside and they set to hammer and tongs. I ought to of said, sir, that Bombay had a tidy packet of redcoats aboard, and there seemed to be plenty of soldiers in Venus too, her decks were that crowded with men. Well now, Venus didn't care for it overmuch, and presently she wore out of range, new-gammoning her bowsprit, as far as I could judge. Howsoever, in a couple of glasses she perked her spirits up again, and the wind having backed two points she set her stuns'ls and bore down. The action started again in the morning watch, a running fight, with both on "em under royals and larboard stuns'ls; but by now we was so far ahead I couldn't rightly see how it went. I did see Venus lose her foretopmast and her gaff, and Bombay, she lost her main and mizen topmasts, and her courses were chawed up something cruel; but she was standing on for Saint-Denis and giving as good as she got when last we see her plain, and the sloop was still a league and more astern."

While he was speaking the Boadicea began to heel to larboard; she had run beyond the land-breeze, which came from aft, and she was now in the south easter, a gentle wind today, untimely gentle. In spite of his words about seamanlike officers Jack went on deck the moment Bonden's account was done. He automatically checked the spread of canvas against the force of the wind, and found something of a disproportion: like so many others, young Johnson still entertained the delusion that more sail meant more speed, and in his eagerness he was pressing her down by the head. Jack did not wish the change to have the appearance of a check, however, and first he hailed the masthead. "Masthead, there. What do you see?"

"They are hull-up now, sir," called the lookout. "Heavy frigate, Indiaman, and a ship-rigged sloop or maybe a jackass frigate, all wearing French colours; pendant aboard the big frigate. No firing since four bells. Frigate's lost her topmasts, all three of them. Indiaman too. Sloop unwounded, I believe."

Jack nodded, took a turn or so, told Johnson that he might find her labour less with the flying-jib hauled down, slung his glass, set his hands to the shrouds, and swung himself up: up and up, through the maintop, Up again to the crosstrees, slower than he would have climbed twenty years before, but still at a respectable pace.

All that the lookout had told him was true; but what the lookout had not been able to tell him was the spirit of the scene far over there to the north, so far over that the shimmering air sometimes gave the distant ships their masts and sometimes took them away; and it was that he had climbed his airy pinnacle to make out. After a backward glance at the Staunch and the Otter, both of them a couple of miles astern and losing steadily, he settled down to a prolonged study of the position. Between them the Vinus and the Victor had certainly taken the Bombay, having reduced her to her lower masts alone: the Vinus had paid heavily, however, losing not only her fore and main topmasts but the greater part of her mizen too. The sloop had not suffered at all. There was great activity aboard the Vinus, and it appeared to him that they were preparing to send up a new foretopmast: they had certainly fished a fine great spar of some kind to the stump of the mizen. Boats were passing between the ships. The distance was too great for any certainty, but it looked as though bodies of men were moving in both directions: as though it were not merely a shifting of prisoners. Did Hamelin intend to man his prize? It was by no means impossible: sailing from his home port he might very well have doubled his crew with seamen drafted from his other ships, to say nothing of all the soldiers in Port-Louis. If he could spare enough men to serve the Bombay's forty guns, and if he had the hardihood to do so, that would change the situation.