Patrick O'Brian - H.M.S. Surprise

‘These old pitch-​spots,’ said the captain of the after-​guard in a wheedling, reasoning voice. ‘What would the quarterdeck look like with all these old pitch-​spots when we come to rig church?’ Then, as Dr Maturin showed signs of going to sleep again, he returned to ‘By your leave, sir. By your leave, if you please.’

In the heat the tar on the rigging melted and fell on the deck; the pitch used in caulking the seams melted too; and Stephen, plucking off his bag, saw that they had scrubbed, sanded and holystoned all round him - that he was in a spotted island, surrounded by impatient seamen, eager to be done with their work so that they could shave and put on their Sunday clothes. Sleep was hopelessly gone: he stood up, took his head right out of the bag, muttering. ‘No peace in this infernal hulk, or tub - persecution -Judaic superstitious ritual cleanliness - archaic fools,’ and walked stiffly to the side. But as he stood the sun shot a grateful living warmth right into his bones: a cock in the nearby coop crowed, standing on tiptoe, and instantly a hen cried that she had laid an egg, an egg! He stretched, gazed about him, met the stony, disapproving faces of the afterguard and realised that the gumminess of his feet was caused by tar, pitch and resin on his shoes: a trail of dirty footsteps led across the clean deck from the place where he had slept to the rail where he now stood. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Franklin,’ he cried, ‘I have dirtied the floor, I find. Come, give me a scraper - sand - a broom.’

The harsh looks vanished. ‘No, no,’ they cried - it was only a little pitch, not dirt - they would have it off in a moment. But Stephen had caught up a small holystone and he was earnestly spreading the pitch far, deep and wide, surrounded by a ring of anxious, flustered seamen when four bells struck, and to the infinite distress of the afterguard a huge shadow fell across the deck - the captain, stark naked and carrying a towel.

‘Good morning, Doctor,’ he said. ‘What are you about?’

‘Good morning, my dear,’ said Stephen. ‘It is this damned spot. But I shall have him out. I shall extirpate this spot.’

‘What do you say to a swim?’

‘With all my heart. In less than a moment. I have a theory - a trifle of sand, there, if you please. A small knife. No. No, my hypothesis was unsound. Perhaps aqua-​regia, spirits of salt . . .

‘Franklin, show the Doctor how we do it in the Navy. My dear fellow, if I might suggest taking off your shoes? Then they might not have to scrub right through the deck and leave His Excellency without a roof to his head.’

‘An excellent suggestion,’ said Stephen. He tiptoed barefoot to a carronade and sat looking at his upturned soles. ‘Martial tells us that in his day the ladies of the town had sequi me engraved upon their sandals; from which it is reasonable to conclude, that Rome was uncommon muddy, for sand would scarcely hold the print. I shall swim the whole length of the ship today.’

Jack stepped on to the western rail and looked down into the water. It was so clear that he could see the light passing under the frigate’s keel: her hull projected a purple underwater shadow westwards, sharp head and stern but vague beneath because of her trailing skirts of weeds - a heavy growth in spite of her new copper, for they had been a great while south of the tropic. No ominous lurking shape, however; only a school of shining little fishes and a few swimming crabs. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, diving in.

The sea was warmer than the air, but there was refreshment in the rush of bubbles along his skin, the water tearing through his hair, the clean salt taste in his mouth. Looking up he saw the silvery undersurface, the Surprise’s hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-​line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea:

then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. His impetus bore him down and down, and Jack noticed that he was holding his nose: he was holding it still when he came to the surface, but then relinquished it to strike out in his usual way - short, cataleptic jerks, with his eyes tightly shut and his mouth clenched in savage determination. Some inherent leading quality about his person kept him very low in the water, his nose straining just clear of the surface; but he had made great progress since the day Jack had first dipped him over the side in a running bowline three days out from Madeira, two thousand miles and many weeks sailing to the north: or rather many weeks of trimming sail, hoping to catch a hint of a breeze in their royals and flying kites, and whistling for a wind; for although they had picked up the north-​east trades off the Canaries and had run down twenty-​five degrees of latitude, day after day of sweet sailing, hardly touching a sheet or a brace and often logging two hundred miles between noon and noon, the sun growing higher with every latitude they took, they had run into the Variables far north of the line, and hitherto they had not had a hint of the south-​east trades, in spite of the fact that at this time of the year they were to be expected well above the equator. Three hundred miles now of calm or of capricious often baffling breezes - weeks of towing the ship’s head round to take advantage of them, heaving round the yards, getting the fire-​engine into the tops to wet the sails, buckets of water whipped up to the royals to help them draw - only to find the breeze die away or desert them to ruffle the sea ten miles away. But mostly dead calm and the Surprise drifting imperceptibly westwards on the equatorial current, very slowly turning upon herself. A lifeless sea, the swell invisible but for the sickening heave of the horizon as she rolled with no sail to steady her; almost no birds, very few fishes - the single turtle and yesterday’s booby a nine days’ wonder; never a sail under the pure dome of the sky; the sun beating down twelve hours a day. And they were running short of water . . . how long would the short allowance last? He dismissed the calculations for the moment and swam towards the boat towing behind, where Stephen was clinging to the gunwale and calling out something about the Hellespont, incomprehensible for the gasping.

‘Did you see me?’ he cried as Jack came nearer. ‘I swam the entire length: four hundred and twenty strokes without a pause!’

‘Well done,’ said Jack, swinging himself into the boat with an easy roll. ‘Well done indeed.’ Each stroke must have propelled Stephen a little less than three inches, for the Surprise was only a twenty-​eight gun ship, a sixth-​rate of 579 tons - the kind so harshly called a jackass frigate by those not belonging to her. ‘Should you like to come aboard? Let me give you a hand.’

‘No, no,’ cried Stephen, drawing away. ‘I shall manage perfectly well. For the moment I am taking my ease. I thank you, however.’ He hated to be helped. Even at the beginning of the voyage, when his poor twisted limbs would hardly carry him along the deck he had detested it, and yet daily he had made a stated number of turns from the taffrail to the break of the head and back again; daily, after they had reached the height of Lisbon, he had crawled into the mizen-​top, allowing no man but Bonden to attend him, while Jack watched in agony from below and two hands darted about on deck with a fender to break his fall. And every evening he forced his mutilated hand to skip up and down the muted strings of his ‘cello, while his set face turned a paler grey. But Lord, what progress he had made! This last frantic swim would have been infinitely beyond his strength only a month ago, to say nothing of their time in Portsmouth.

‘What were you saying about the Hellespont?’ he asked.